


A Guy Could Do Worse

by needleyecandy



Series: Vegas Verse [2]
Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Anal Sex, Angst, Assumptions, Communication Failure, Falling In Love, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Masturbation, NSFW Art, Oral Sex, Passive-aggression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, terrible exes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-10-10 01:55:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 47
Words: 48,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10426608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/needleyecandy/pseuds/needleyecandy
Summary: Thor and Loki woke up from what should have been a lighthearted one-night stand to find themselves naked, hungover, and married. It shouldn't be that hard to end a Vegas marriage -   celebrities do it all the time! - but life isn't as easy as it should be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hermaline75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermaline75/gifts).



> At last, a sequel that Hermaline75 requested long enough ago that she's almost certainly forgotten. I started it quite some time ago and had gotten a good chunk of it written and then life happened and I was living my central plot device, and I had to scrap it and start over with something else. (Here's hoping I haven't jinxed myself.)
> 
> I wouldn't have written something so strongly Midwestern for a Brit if the first part of the series didn't have so many Minnesota jokes, but here we are. [This video](http://video.tpt.org/video/2365042610/) on Minnesotan speech and culture will probably be useful for readers unfamiliar with the Upper Midwest. (Plus it's hilarious.) Please let me know if the link doesn't work outside the US and I'll look for another source. For something shorter, look on YouTube for "How to talk Minnesotan." Just trust me.

Someone was going to have to say something, and the longer the silence stretched, the clearer it was that that someone was going to have to be Loki. “At least we know our families will get along,” he managed.

Loki had noticed him two days before, rushing down a hall between sessions, and if only Loki hadn't been about to present he would have turned on his heel and followed him to wherever he was going. He'd scanned the crowd at the reception that evening, hoping to sound out the chances of taking that giant mass of perfection off to bed with him, but perfection had apparently chosen not to attend. He'd worried that perfection had decided to leave early - lots of people did, the final day was so short - but there he'd been, walking just in front of Loki into the one o'clock session. Loki nabbed the seat next to him, and when he noticed him looking through a corporate brochure Loki wasted no time scratching a note onto the back of his card.

Thor Odinson introduced himself with his card in return, and Loki joked about lutefisk and then the talk was forgotten as they passed it writing notes back and forth instead of listening. Loki was smitten before he even heard Thor's voice. It should have been a perfect ending to a boring conference, the two of them drinking and flirting and falling into bed. Not drinking and then drinking too much and then waking up painfully hungover to find a marriage license with their names on it.

Thor hadn't said anything to Loki's weak attempt at levity. “Right?” he prompted.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Thor managed a weak smile and raised his glass of juice. "Cheers?"

Loki groaned. "Too soon."

"Yeah. Sorry."

Halfway through breakfast Thor unceremoniously shoved the complimentary bottle of champagne ( _Happy Honeymoon from your friends at the Parthenon!_ read the dangling tag) in a closet, since just the sight of it was making them queasy. They felt a little better once it was put away, and after finishing their food and sprawling in the overstuffed chairs in front of the television for a while, they found themselves beginning to feel vaguely human.

"I guess we need to figure out how we deal with that," Loki said, nodding towards the folder with their marriage certificate.

Thor didn't seem quite up to nodding just yet. "I wonder if there's a divorce info sheet in there," he said. "It had to have been obvious that we were wasted."

There wasn't one. "You'd think with all these ads, there'd be one for a fucking divorce lawyer," Loki muttered, throwing it to the coffee table in annoyance.

"We should call the chapel. Maybe they haven't filed it yet, we could tell them to tear it up," Thor suggested, reaching for it. He opened it up and looked at the license again as if staring at it hard enough could make it disappear. “And what’s _covenant_ marriage mean?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The license. It said it was for a covenant marriage.”

Loki shrugged. “Sounds old-fashioned. They probably just never changed the name. You know how legal stuff is, like those click bait articles with laws from the sixteen hundreds that are still on the books.”

“Hmm. Yeah."

Thor found the chapel’s contact information on the back of the folder. He closed his eyes. "Oh my god. We actually got married by an Elvis impersonator."

"Are you serious?" Loki said, laughing. "That's hilarious."

They played rock-paper-scissors over who had to call. Loki played scissors. Thor put down rock.

Loki, unable to find his cell, sat down at the desk and picked up the hotel phone. "If I have to make this call, you have to be the one who pays their insane charge of two-ninety-five a minute," he said.

"Deal," Thor told him.

Loki took a breath and tossed back his hair before dialing. "Yes, hi. I accidentally got married last night, and I was hoping you could shred everything instead of filing the paperwork," he said when they answered.

The answer made his stomach into a pit of acid and his heart fell into it because apparently being hungover wasn't enough physical punishment from the universe. "Im sorry, sir. It's all automated now. As soon as the service was finished, it was filed electronically with the state." She sounded sympathetic which was no consolation at all.

"Uh-huh. I see. And there's no way around that?"

"No, I'm sorry, sir."

"Okay, thank you."

Loki hung up the phone and looked at Thor. "Electronic filing. It's automatic."

Thor heaved a sigh. "I don't suppose they had any lawyer recommendations?"

"Do you want legal counsel that's been suggested by a fake Elvis? I don't," Loki said.

"No, you're right. Yelp?"

"I'm not sure that's much better, but I don't know what else to do. I'll call the odd numbered ones, you do the evens?"

It turned out that Las Vegas had a lot of divorce lawyers. However, it also turned out that none of them worked weekends. They spent two solid hours working through the list before they gave up. Loki tried not to think about what the phone bill would be. Probably more than the divorce.

"Hell, I don't know where we go from here. At least we live in the same state, that's got to help, right?" Thor said. He started laughing. "This whole thing doesn't even seem real. Do you think?"

"Not really, no." Trying and failing to avoid thinking of the hotel charges gave him a new and horrible thought. "What time do we have to be out of here, anyway?" he asked.

"Shit," Thor said, reaching for the phone.

Loki didn't blink as he watched Thor talk to reception, and his eyebrows rose the moment Thor hung up.

"We've got it through noon tomorrow. It's already paid for, split between our cards."

"That's it, then," Loki announced. He stood up. "This is way nicer than my room, I'm going to go get my stuff."

"Sure," Thor said. "Um, do you mind if I do too?"

Loki shrugged. "Nope. We're equal partners in this insanity, right?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, stmonkeys is once again feeling inspired to illustrate! Here they are with Reverend Elvis.

At least their drunken selves had conveniently picked out a hotel right next door to the one with the conference room block, and at least he didn't run into anyone he knew. Those things were small blessings but Thor wasn't about to quibble. He was back in their luxury suite in less than half an hour, Loki arriving just a few minutes after him. They set their luggage by the window of the sitting room as though agreeing silently to pretend the bedroom wasn't really there. Loki stood looking down at the Strip. The air conditioner clicked on and the fan hurt his head.

"Want to see if any of these coupons are good?" Thor asked.

"Why not? Maybe there's something better than how I'd planned to kill my free day," Loki said.

Thor dumped the flyers out of the wedding folder and gave Loki half. They sat on the couch, rejecting, rejecting - Thor really wasn't feeling into a tour of the Neon Graveyard and he couldn't imagine Loki was either - until they both spoke at once.

"How about a helicopter ride over the desert?" Thor asked, just as Loki was saying, "A massage sounds like heaven."

"Let's do the helicopter. I can get a massage back home," Loki said.

"Let's see how long they take. Maybe we can do both. I've never needed stress relief more than today."

"Didn't you have to take qualifying exams?"

Thor chuckled. "You're right. This isn't  _that_ bad."

It was impossible to talk over the noise of the helicopter, and they found themselves constantly tapping each other on the arm and pointing out their windows. When the ride was over, the pilot asked them how long they'd known each other.

"Not long," Loki said vaguely.

The pilot smiled at them. Thor looked at his hands, leathery from years in the sun. His heavy gold ring was dented and scuffed.

Thor hadn't thought about the fact that the massages would be in the nude. The only times he'd seen Loki naked, he'd been either too drunk to remember or too hungover to _look_. It made this feel way more intimate than it had any right to be. Thor kept his eyes lowered until they were safely covered up, the pleasantly heated sheets making things a little less awkward. When he glanced over, Loki's eyes were closed.

He had been so eager to fall into bed with Loki when they had first met. Even before they had spoken to one another beyond the notes scribbled in the back of an unwanted booklet, he had been interested. It was supposed to have been so easy. Going to bed together, wallowing in hours upon hours of shared indulgence, and then an easy parting at the airport with a kiss and no glances back.

The lost hours ate at him so that he barely felt the fingers digging deep into his back, working out the knots that hadn't been there yesterday. Whose idea had this been, he wondered. Who proposed, and who said yes. He couldn't think about so much as a kiss, now. Not now that there was that stupid piece of paper. It was impossible to have no-strings-attached sex when they were bound together by the biggest string he could imagine.

Loki seemed to feel the same way. When the hour was up and they were left alone, he kept his eyes lowered as they dressed. The limo driver took one look at them as they walked out of the spa, diagnosed them with _jitters_ and produced another bottle of free champagne once they were settled into the back of the car. The moment he sat down he had the privacy divider going up.

They shrugged at each other. "Free's free," Thor said.

Despite their hangovers being nearly over with, the first few sips were a little rough, and Loki made a face. "Dog hair's never very appealing, is it?" he asked wryly.

Thor snorted. "Still better than lutefisk," he pointed out.

"True."

The tension in the car fell with the level of champagne. By the time they were on the outskirts of the city, its blazing lights already making the sky over-bright, they were slouching comfortably next to each other, laughing at the mess in which they found themselves.

"But you know, despite everything, I've had a really nice day," Thor said, rolling his head to face Loki.

"Me, too." Loki's stomach rumbled. "Hey, we haven't eaten since those hangover specials. Do you want to get dinner?"

"I'd like that," Thor told him.

Dinner that night was _good_. Thor was so caught up in their conversation he scarcely noticed his food. They shared so many of the same stories - the same rivalry between the two Lutheran churches in their home towns (though in Loki's, the churches were in the north and south of town, where in Thor's they were east-west), the same plain hardware stores, both run by Mr. Johansens, (though it sounded like Loki's Mr. Johansen still had more hair), the same Nordic Heritage Fests each summer. Halfway through dessert, Thor realized he hadn't laughed so much in years.

Things didn't get awkward again until they returned to their room. If the circumstances were different, they would have been kissing madly in the elevator, ripping at each other's clothes before they had the door to their room shut. But things weren't different. Strange how that piece of paper that he had grown up thinking of as an endorsement (Thor could still hear the voice of Mrs. Olson, his Sunday school teacher. _No funny business until marriage!_ she would say, not being able to utter the word _sex_ ) was the most effective barrier he could now imagine. From Loki's suggestion that they take turns changing in the bathroom, he must have felt the same.


	3. Chapter 3

The whole thing was just so weird and awkward. At least from Thor's reaction when Loki suggested they change in the bathroom, he felt the same way. That wasn't hugely comforting, but right now Loki would take what he could get.

"You can have it first," Thor offered.

"Thanks," Loki said. He picked up his bag and went in, sliding the door silently shut behind him. The toilet didn't have a lid so he perched on the edge of the tub and stared at himself in the mirror. _What have you gotten yourself into this time?_ he asked his reflection. It proved just as useless now as it always was. He sat on the hard porcelain until he started to get a numb stripe across his ass.

At least he'd brought old pajamas. He had briefly debated packing the nice new ones, but decided that if he had an overnight guest they probably wouldn't be seeing them anyway, and if the luggage with these got lost he wouldn't mind so much. Now he was glad that he'd be wearing something that suggested no expectations.

He brushed his teeth for what felt like an hour before working up the nerve to spit and go back out into the bedroom.

Thor took just as long in there. Maybe longer. Loki sat at the table, hollow eyes fixed on the license. It was on nice paper and the edges had been printed to look like a doily. The printed text was in elaborate copperplate. The date of the wedding, their names, and the minister’s name had been scrawled in with blue ballpoint.

Thor finally reappeared wearing a pair of sweatpants and an undershirt. His stocking feet made whispers against the dense carpet. He'd let his hair down and it hung in soft waves about his face and if this whole thing weren't so strange Loki would be standing up right now and running his fingers through it, maybe giving Thor a little smile before leaning forwards to press their lips together.

"Do you want to watch tv?" Loki asked instead.

"Sure," Thor said. "I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep for a while."

Loki shook his head. "Me neither."

“There’s still that bottle of champagne in the closet…” Thor trailed off.

“I’m down. If we completely kill off our livers this weekend, it gets us out of having to deal with anything.”

Thor gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah.”

Loki got up and followed him into the sitting room. “It’s going to be warm. Do you like mimosas? I think that’s the only way I can drink it with ice.”

“Thanks. Yeah.”

Loki stuck one of the key cards in his pocket and grabbed a few dollars from his wallet. The vending machines were at the other end of the hall and he took his time filling the ice bucket and buying bottles of juice. When he got back to the room Thor had the bottle open and the glasses ready. They mixed their drinks in silence and took everything into the bedroom.

"Anything you want to watch?" Thor sat down on the side of the bed and picked up the remote.

"I don’t know what's on," Loki said. He started to fold the blankets back and paused. "Is that side okay?"

“I’m sorry, I didn’t ask. Yeah, I like to sleep on the left. Unless you want it?"

"No, I like the right side. I just wanted to make sure." He tugged off his socks and slid between the sheets. The thread count was so high they felt more like satin and he wondered vaguely whose card would get charged if he stole them. He had been too hung over that morning to enjoy how nice they felt. Maybe he'd appreciated them the night before. He hoped so.

Thor got in too, as far to the other side as he could go. If they were any farther apart they'd have been clinging to the edges of the mattress. He turned the tv on and started flipping channels. "Tell me if you see something you want to watch. I don't – I'm not picky."

"Okay."

It wasn’t until they were both in bed that Loki thought of the tv in the other room, where they could have stayed on the couch. It had a bigger screen, even. Still, pointing that out now seemed worse than saying nothing. The tastefully soft lighting was still bright enough to cast a glare across the screen. Loki got up and flipped them off. Maybe that would be better, anyway. Not being able to see.

They scrolled through twice without anything grabbing them. "Fuck it. Want to see what's on pay per view?" Thor asked. "Or I could try to hook my laptop to the tv."

"That's okay. Pay per view is fine."

They settled on something stupid with lots of explosions. He was wrong about not being able to see. The light from the screen lit the room with a blue glow, casting everything into long shadows. Loki slid his eyes to the side to look at Thor without turning his head. From this angle he could just make out his profile. Strong brow and chin. Full lips. At least the tv wasn't bright enough for him to see how red they were.

His mind didn't process a single second of the movie. Instead it was churning, running over and over the fact that he was in bed with a scorching hot guy who he also genuinely liked, and the only thing standing in the way of him crawling on top of Thor and doing all sorts of unspeakably delicious things to him was that stupid piece of paper. The stupidest part was that even now he could hear Mrs. Osland's voice, all those Sunday school lectures about how one mustn't do s-e-x outside marriage. (She always said 'do.' Never 'have.')

The movie ended and Thor muted the end music. "Do you want to watch something else?" he asked.

Loki shook his head. "I don't think so," he said, shoving back the covers. "I have some benadryl in my bag, I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep without it. Do you want one?"

"That'd be nice. Thanks."

The a/c had felt so good after the Nevada heat, but now, after the warmth of the bed, it was way too much. He went to the bathroom and the tiles were cold against his bare feet, the chill creeping almost instantly into his toes. He got out the bottle – it was on the bottom of his toiletries bag, whatever he wanted was always on the bottom – and took one. He put some water in the other glass and carried it and a pill out to Thor.

"Wow. I'd forgotten how pink those are. Thank you," Thor said. He reached out and took them. His fingers were so warm.


	4. Chapter 4

Thor woke up first the next morning. As he had feared, they had both moved about during the night, but at least it was only their feet that were touching. He drew away slowly, trying not to wake Loki with the shifting of the bed.

Loki's breathing was shallow and easy. Thor lay still, leaving him in peace, letting him enjoy it while he could. He hoped it wasn't too creepy to be watching him sleep; he'd woken on his side and didn't want to shake the bed by rolling over. And, were he to be honest with himself, he liked looking. Loki awake was striking, all dramatic colors and sharp planes and sharper smiles. But now, asleep in the diffuse glow of morning, he looked softer, so sweet and gentle and if only things were different Thor would be reaching out to tug the blanket up where it had slid off Loki's shoulder. He would have pulled him close and kept him warm. He would have smoothed back the unruly lock that trailed across that delicate cheekbone.

What a ridiculous situation it was. They got along so well and by all rights it should have been sexual exhaustion, not allergy pills, that had knocked them out last night. And Loki looked so _touchable_ right now. Maybe, even with that paper like a steel wall between them... but no. _This insanity,_ Loki had called it. They had agreed on a one-night stand and it would be horrible for Thor to press something unwanted, no matter how much he liked Loki. He would do the decent thing and get a divorce and when they passed in the hall at next year's conference he would smile and nod hello. And that would be that.

He closed his eyes when he noticed Loki's breathing start to change, forcing his own to be long and slow. He could feel the slight jerk of the bed when Loki woke and realized and stiffened. He ordered himself to look asleep and after a few moments Loki got up and went to the bathroom. When he came out, Thor was stretching and rubbing his eyes.

"Sorry. For a fancy hotel the toilet is really loud."

"S'okay," Thor said. He hoped that yawn didn't sound too fake.

"What time is it?"

Thor fumbled for his phone. "Nine-oh-seven," he said.

"When is your flight?"

"About two-thirty. When's yours?"

"Three. Want to split a cab?" "Sure."

"Do you want the shower first? I can make coffee," Loki offered.

"Thanks. That would be nice of you."

It was even more awkward this morning than the last, without the pain of a hangover to make everything else blurry and pale in comparison. But... they had had a good time yesterday. He hadn't imagined that. They could barely eat their dinners for laughter. It would be better once they were in the other room, he decided. Dressed for the day and away from the bed that loomed so large between them.

The shower was huge. It had brown marble walls and gold fixtures and the shampoo smelled like oranges and the tub was big enough for three. He wondered if he and Loki had taken advantage of it, Friday night. He tried to remember if there were used towels on the floor when they got up yesterday but he couldn't. He could picture it, though. Loki might have wanted to use bubble bath but Thor would have insisted against it, wouldn't have been willing to let anything obscure his view of Loki's skin beneath the surface of the water. Loki would have flicked water at him playfully – Loki was a flicker, there was no doubt in his mind – until Thor grabbed his hands and pulled them together.

It was with a flush of shame that he realized he'd gotten hard. It seemed intrusive, somehow, invasive of Loki's privacy to be picturing him naked now. He tried to will it away but it was insistent. With a sigh he took himself in hand and let go.

Loki was in the sitting room sipping his coffee and flipping through the room service menu when Thor left the bathroom. Thor was fully dressed but for his bare feet, a towel around his shoulders to catch the last drops falling from his hair. It felt like it was written across his face in day-glo marker, _Hi, I just jerked off to you,_ but Loki didn't seem to notice. "Can you order while I shower?" he asked. "I want the Belgian waffles. Extra strawberries and whipped cream."

"You bet."

"Thanks. Coffee's in the pot. I couldn't remember how you take it but there's plenty of creamers left."

"Thanks."

"You bet."

After a look through the menu Thor decided Loki had picked the best option, though he got his order with extra bacon. He turned on the tv for the noise, leaving it on the Weather Channel because it was less annoying than morning talk shows. Loki was done before the food arrived. He had a towel around his shoulders, too.

“Your hair’s curly,” Thor said.

Loki grimaced. “Yeah.”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s so unruly. Straight is easier to deal with.”

“I guess that makes sense. It looks nice though,” Thor said hesitantly. _Shit, that was weird, don’t say stuff like that,_ he told himself, but Loki didn’t seem to mind.

“Thanks. I gotta get some benefit from it I guess, eh?”

He'd been right about things being easier outside the bedroom. The forecast for Minnesota ran across the screen not a minute after Loki had sat down on the other end of the sofa, and they both started laughing.

"Hard to believe that's what's waiting for us, don't you think?" Loki said.

Thor shrugged. "Well, like my mom always says, it's either winter or-"

"-construction season!" Loki chimed in.

“Exactly,” Thor said. “Still, it’s April. It really seems like ethically the snow should be over.”

Loki nodded. "Want to know a secret?” he asked after a moment.

"What?"

"Deep down, I kinda like Ole and Lena jokes."

"Do you want to know a secret?"

"What?"

"I do too."

Loki grinned. "You want to hear my favorite?"

"Definitely."

"Okay. Ole and Lena are having breakfast and the weather report comes on and says there's a lot of snow on the way, everyone has to move their car to the odd numbered side of the street to make way for the plows. So Ole goes and moves the car. Then a few days later there's another storm and they have to park on the even side, so Ole goes and moves the car. Then another storm comes and just as the reporter is about to say which side to park on, the power goes out. 'Now how vill I know vere to park de car?' says Ole. And Lena says, 'Oh heck, Ole, just leave it in de garage.'"

"That's the worst one I've ever heard," Thor told him, laughing.

"Same here. That's why I love it so much," Loki said. His eyes were still shining when breakfast arrived.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to Wisconsin. You've never been anything but kind to me.

Loki looked at Thor's plate. "What did you do?" he asked.

Thor shrugged. "I like bacon."

"No, _I_ like bacon. That is... that's something else," Loki said, laughing.

"I like to get lots of protein in the morning. It was this or the steak."

"I never understood steak for breakfast."

"Exactly."

"Fair point." Loki cut into his waffle. The strawberries and whipped cream were piled high enough he had to turn his head sideways to get it into his mouth.

Thor got a look on his face that had to be unintentional. "You got whipped cream on your nose."

Loki rubbed at it with his napkin. "Thanks."

"Sure."

Loki took another bite while Thor crunched into a strip of bacon. There wasn't anything else to say about breakfast and the silence was getting long.

"Tell me another joke," Thor said between mouthfuls.

"I think it's your turn to tell a joke," Loki said, careful to keep his voice light and playful. _No awkwardness here. Just two accidentally married guys eating breakfast in their honeymoon suite._

"Okay," Thor answered dramatically. He looked at the ceiling as he thought. "Do you know why they don't drink Kool-Aid in Wisconsin?"

"No, why?"

"They can't figure out how to get the water to fit into that little packet."

Loki laughed harder than it deserved but it was enough to break the sudden ice. "Do you know why the trees in Minnesota lean east?"

"Hmm-mm," Thor mumbled through his full mouth.

"Because Wisconsin sucks."

Things seemed easier after that.

 

Thor was first to finish his coffee so Loki was left alone while Thor clattered around in the bathroom. The fan turned on automatically, but with the door left open Loki could hear the water running, Thor humming tunelessly as he shaved, the soft whish of his toothbrush. Loki stood at the window watching the flow of people on the sidewalks, a constant stream of teal and purple and far too much lycra. "How many of you would kill to be in my shoes," he murmured. His body was _still_ somehow tingling from jerking off in the shower to thoughts of Thor in there just before, his body all soapy and slippery and the air intoxicating in its heaviness. He was certain now that they hadn't had sex that first night. No matter how drunk he was, he'd have woken up knowing.

"Thanks, it's all yours," Thor said. He put his toiletry bag on top of his suitcase and came to stand next to Loki. "Vegas, where fashion comes to die."

"I was just thinking that. It's like one huge jazzercise class down there," Loki agreed with a snort.

"Except lifting three-foot margaritas instead of weights."

"That's basically a workout, right?"

Thor chuckled. "Better than nothing, I suppose. As long as they don't drink them."

Loki forced down the last sips of cold coffee because he needed the caffeine too much not to drink it. "Yeah."

The bathroom seemed empty without Thor's stuff strewn haphazardly across the counter. Loki dumped his things out, working some balm through his hair, taking his pills, brushing his teeth. When he got back to the sitting room Thor was still at the window. "This is a lot nicer than my apartment. I almost hate to leave," he said.

Loki gave a murmur of agreement. "It's bigger than most of the apartments I've had, too."

Still, they agreed that it made more sense to check out a little early and have lunch at the airport after they'd made their painful way through the security line. Thor got through first - "they always think I look suspicious," Loki complained to Thor as he was pulled aside – and he waited at the end of the corridor, leaning with one shoulder against the wall checking his phone, until Loki got there. Perfect as he had looked by the glow of the tv, he looked even better here, with the sunshine making his hair glow and that body, massive and _solid_ , silhouetted against the window. Heads turned as people passed him by. More than one head kept turning to check out the rear view. _They'd probably give anything to be married to him,_ Loki thought.

"Hi, I made it," he said, smiling when Thor jumped a little.

"I was starting to worry. What do you feel like eating?"

"It's the southwest. Should we get Mexican, or will airport Mexican just leave us with indigestion and regret?"

"I'm betting on the latter."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"We've got some time... I was starving when I got here, and ate at a decent burger place before I went to my hotel. Are burgers okay?"

"I like burgers."

The food was all right for an airport. Not that Loki tasted it. They couldn't keep ignoring the elephant in the room; all it would do was divide and fly home with both of them.

"Look, we should trade numbers. For when we get back."

Thor blinked, startled. He'd just finished telling a story about one time when he'd gone to the Boundary Waters and the boat engine went out two miles from shore, so the transition was rather abrupt. "Oh. Yeah. You're right."

Loki gave Thor his phone for him to enter the number. Thor handed it back and Loki called it.

"You're not supposed to answer," Loki said, trying to look playfully stern.

"Oh. I'll hang up then. Bye."

"Bye."


	6. Chapter 6

Thor's flight boarded at two. Loki walked him to his gate and they stood in a uncomfortable silence until his boarding group was called.

"I guess we'll be in touch to figure out... you know, stuff," Thor said.

"Yeah. Well, have a good flight," Loki said. He stuck out his hand to shake just as Thor was leaning in for a hetero side-hug, the kind where everyone's hips stay really far apart, and he ended up jamming Loki's fingers into his stomach.

"Oh. Sorry," Loki said, shifting into hug mode just as Thor put out his own hand to be run into.

They finally managed an embrace that lasted too long and had too many back pats.

"Have a good flight," Loki said.

"You too," said Thor.

He missed his group and had to climb over a whole tangle of legs to reach his seat.

There wasn't much turbulence until the last hour of the flight. Thor gazed out with flat eyes and saw nothing.

When he was spilled out into the terminal Thor checked the arrivals board before going to baggage claim. Loki's flight was still listed on time. That was good, anyway. And Loki was driving southeast, so if he got on the road quickly enough he might be able to stay ahead of it. Not like Thor. He looked over the dense stream of people headed towards baggage claim, gazing out the far window at the lowering clouds in the northwest. Homeward.

It didn't help anything that his car didn't want to start and he found himself cursing his decision to drive rather than take the university's big warm shuttle bus. It left campus so much earlier than he needed to leave, and those extra hours in his warm and cozy bed had seemed worth it on Wednesday. Now he wasn't so sure. When the engine finally turned over the radio burst to life in the middle of a ketchup commercial. As though his mother would ever let him be seen with that brand in his cart at the grocery store. He switched it to CD and put the car into gear. Using the automated cashier saved him a whopping ten bucks off the eighty-five dollar parking fee. Another reason he should have taken the shuttle.

The first thing was to get out of the city fast and so he dropped a little south to get the westbound freeway before heading straight north. It was half an hour to Maple Grove and from there he had almost a straight shot to St. Cloud. The winds hit first, buffeting his car into the right emergency lane and making him send up skids of gravel as he straightened out. The snow wasn't heavy but it caught the headlights of the oncoming traffic and became almost blinding. Traffic grew slower and slower, and by the time he reached his turnoff the cars were barely going thirty.

What should have been a ninety-minute drive ended up taking nearly three, and it was almost eleven by the time he pulled into his building's lot. At least when he stepped out into the blanket of snow, it only reached his ankles. It could have been worse.

He had some hotdish languishing in his freezer from Christmas. He was so tired he barely tasted the freezerburn.

 

It was strange to be back at work. Everyone kept asking how the conference had been and he kept giving vague platitudes in answer. It didn't help that he'd been awake half the night, his brain churning over the situation in which he found himself.

If only he hadn't had such a good time on Saturday.

"All right. Spill," Tony said, sitting down on Thor's desk.

"Spill what?" asked Thor, looking up.

Tony rolled his eyes. "This is me, Thor. I know what you do at conferences, and the way you keep staring off into the distance when you think no one's watching? That means you did a lot of it. So spill."

"You know I don't kiss and tell."

It was worth a try, but it failed. "I know you _do_ kiss and tell," Tony told him with a snort. "But if you want to be all tight-lipped I can't stop you."

He could, however, circumvent Thor entirely, and that was exactly what he did. He was back in Thor's office not an hour later with a smile as wide as his moustache.


	7. Chapter 7

Parting was _weird._ Juliet might not have liked sweet sorrow but Loki would definitely have taken it over whatever that was that happened at Thor’s gate. Loki’s gate was in the same terminal at the far end. He walked beside the moving walkway. Might as well move while he could before getting crammed into his economy seat like a canned sardine. He stopped in one of the crappy newsstands that never had any interesting magazines and got a book of crossword puzzles. He didn’t like crosswords but between trying to solve them and his dislike of doing them it would keep his mind busier than if he watched whatever inane movie had been chosen and edited by the airline. The planes had wifi now but damned if he was going to pay twenty bucks for three hours of Internet.

He not only wound up next to a talker, but one with the heavy accent he’d so carefully schooled out of himself. “So, did you have a good time in Sin City?” she asked.

He smiled faintly. “I was at a conference.”

“Oh, but you must have had some time to yourself. It’d be a darned shame to go to Las Vegas and not have a little self indulgence. You know what they say. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

Loki thought of the marriage license in the front pocket of his briefcase. “Yeah. They do say that.”

The movie was La La Land. He’d known from the poster that he’d hate it. He ended up watching it anyway.

The last part of his flight was bumpy, and he glared out his window at the looming skies, headphones still on so he could pretend he didn’t hear his seat mate trying to talk. At least they landed early, the storm giving a boost to the tailwinds. The roads were still clear, too. He ignored his rumbling stomach and drove straight home, keeping ahead of the snow. He let himself in, made a sandwich with the bread he’d accidentally left out on the counter, and went to bed. He finally managed to fall asleep by telling himself that none of it had happened.

 

It was a relief to be back at work the next day. The normalcy of routine offered a respite he sorely needed, and the ever-present awareness that if he fucked up he’d be ruining weeks if not months of work always made him focus on the moment.

Lunchtime was excruciating, trying to make himself keep up with the usual Monday chatter while trying to distract them enough they wouldn't ask about the conference. "Where's Erik?" he asked.

“I saw him on the phone,” Jane said through a mouthful of hummus wrap.

"Mmm," he nodded. "Good weekend, Darcy?"

"I had another date with that one guy."

"The one from Florida?" Ian asked, trying to look like he didn't care.

"Yeah. He took me ice skating. He actually thought it would be cute and exciting."

"Did you tell him you could skate before you could walk?" Jane asked.

Darcy snorted. "No way. He's hot. I haven't seen someone that tan since Jens Olsen got back from his time as an exchange student in Bermuda. But speaking of hot, how was Vegas?"

"Incredibly hot. It was in the nineties every day I was there."

"Yeah, that's not what I meant and you know it. You always bang someone at conferences, it's your main reason for going."

"I went to represent the company and get some ideas for what direction to go with my research." Nice deflect, he told himself.

"Yeah. _Research,_ " snorted Ian.

Loki turned on him with acid eyes. "And how was your weekend? Learned to drive on the right side of the road yet?" 

"I did some practicing. I may even get my license before my PhD at this rate," he answered defensively.

"I remember those days," said Jane.

"Learning to drive?" Darcy asked.

"Grad school. Just imagine. One day you'll be done with classes and internships and thesis and you won't know what to do with all your free time."

"So what did _you_ do this weekend?" Loki asked her.

"Read patents."

"Oh my god, that's so boring, Jane. You're single and hot, you should be off having wild hookups like Loki. Hey, remember that time he fucked someone at SPCX and ended up getting us twenty percent off a spectrograph?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "I didn't know at the time. That would have been so tacky."

"That's true," Jane said. "It was a couple months later, it just worked out that way."

Darcy shrugged. "Still, that was a good discount you got us. I can't help wondering what you got this time."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That NSFW art tag? Here's the art. Guard the children, etc, etc. Many thanks to stmonkeys for the lovely drawing, inspired by (link is very NSFW) [justanothertart](https://justanothertart.tumblr.com).

 

"What is it now, Tony?" Thor sighed. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed one hand over his face.

"I made a few calls. You bagged a hottie this year. A super hottie, even for you."

"People aren't game, Tony. You don't bag them like pheasant."

"Maybe _you_ don't," Tony clarified. "But from what I heard it sure sounds like you did."

"I'm not even going to ask."

"You don't have to. I made a few calls and discovered that you and the hottie - who, for convenience's sake, will now be referred to as Mr. Hot Stuff-"

"That's actually one more syllable. Less convenient," Thor interrupted.

"-as I was saying, you and Mr. Hot Stuff totally ignored the talk you were in and sat there writing notes the whole time like a couple of teenagers suffering through history class."

Thor couldn't quite help chuckling at that. "I liked history class," he said.

"And then no one saw either of you at the keynote or closing reception," Tony concluded. "I want a full description and if available I also want photos."

"You're not even into guys," Thor pointed out.

"That doesn't mean I haven't got a finely honed aesthetic sensibility."

Thor snorted. "I don't have any photos, anyway," he said.

It wasn't true. It wasn't even _remotely_ true. He had found quite a lot of photos on his phone, perhaps half of which he remembered taking. He even had wedding photos; these he had scoured carefully for any clues as to who had asked, but there had been nothing. And the ones that came after... well, his imaginings in the shower the day before had, after all, been based in reality. Loki half-dressed, his open shirt hanging from his shoulders to show his nipples, cracking open a minibar vodka; Loki leaning against the wall wearing nothing but a jaunty smile... They did leave him more confident that they hadn't had sex, though. They must have passed out when they hit the bed. There was simply no way he could have taken this many pictures and _not_ taken one of Loki, after. He would have looked irresistibly perfect, his hair messy and a sated look in his eyes...

 

"You're thinking about it right now, aren't you?" interrupted Tony.

"I have a lot of work to catch up on," Thor said brusquely. He reached for a stack of papers.

Tony chuckled at that but at least he went back to his office and left Thor alone.

Thor tried to get caught up. He gave it all the way to lunch before turning his attention to personal matters. He opened an incognito tab and typed in _divorce Vegas marriage_. The top results were a bunch of ads for divorce lawyers and he was scrolling down, looking for the cheapest one, when he got to _Las Vegas Annulment._ "An annulment differs from divorce in that it legally dissolves the marriage rather than ending it, as though it never occurred in the first place," said the summary under the link. Perfect. He clicked it.

The top of the page listed types of payment they accepted – both credit cards and paypal – and the Better Business Bureau A- rating. That was good enough and he was already reaching for a pen to write down their number when he read something that nearly stopped his heart.

"We are the largest legal company in the state, offering quick and easy annulments for Las Vegas marriages, with a 12 year success rate of 99.4% for non-covenant marriages."

New tab. _Nevada covenant marriage._

This time wikipedia was at the top. "Covenant marriage is a legally distinct kind of marriage in some states (Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nevada) of the United States. In Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana it includes the conditions that the marrying spouses agree to obtain pre-marital counseling and accept more limited grounds for later seeking divorce (the least strict of which being that the couple lives apart from each other for only one year). In Nevada there is no requirement for pre-marital counseling and no grounds are accepted for either annulment or divorce." It went on to talk about how these marriages were controversial, being viewed by both supporters and opponents as an injection of religion into the legal arena, the history, percentage of couples choosing it, blah, blah.

_No grounds are accepted for either annulment or divorce._

_**No grounds are accepted for either annulment or divorce.** _

He tried to look up stuff about legal challenges – the law had gone into effect eight years ago, there had to be legal challenges – but soon grew overwhelmed and had to close the window and do something else. Anything else.

At four he gave up even the pretense of working. He packed up his things and was just headed out to his car, keeping his head down to avoid eye contact with students, when his phone rang. He looked. _Loki._ He was so incredibly not ready for this conversation and he nearly let it go to voice mail.

"Hi, Loki."

"That took a while. Were you deciding whether or not to pick up?" Despite his words, his voice lacked the strain of amusement Thor had found so intriguing. He wondered how much Loki had hated making the call.

Thor rubbed his hand over his face and laughed. "Yeah, I was." There was a long pause. "Loki? Are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here... Thor, I have to ask the biggest favor ever."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, many thanks to stmonkeys for the lovely art!

Erik was still in the office when they got back from the building's communal lunchroom. The company had a small lab space in a building aimed at startups, and there was just the one shared office. They took turns when they needed privacy for business calls (mostly Erik, since it was research they were developing, and he was the one who kept in contact with the investors), legal consultations (mostly Jane, who'd somehow wound up doing all the patent work, even though she had no more legal background than the rest of them), booty calls (Darcy and Loki, though never with each other), and thesis-related meltdowns (Ian).

Of course Erik would hang up and come gather them all for an update exactly nine minutes after they returned, just long enough to have gotten back into their work.

Their space - the lease having been signed in a fit of optimism - had room for two more people than were currently on staff. One of the empty lab benches served them as a table and that was where they gathered now.

"What is it?" Darcy asked when he was silent too long.

Erik opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking.

"Shit," said Jane.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” Erik told them. “Thanos is pulling out.”

They met the news with gasps, loud _what_ s and quiet _oh, fuck_ s.

“But he’s our biggest investor. What does that mean?” asked Loki.

“Yeah, can the others keep us going without his funding?” Jane asked.

It was clear from Erik’s face how much he hated saying it. “I’m afraid not. I’ll stay for another two weeks to deal with paperwork and selling off the equipment, but… yeah.”

“So we’re over? Just like that?” Darcy demanded. “We were getting great results, you know that. _He_ knew that.”

“I know. You’re right,” Erik answered, sounding helpless. “But he’s got money in other companies that are getting great results faster.”

“That’s it? Thanks and so long?” Ian said.

“I doubt there was a thanks,” muttered Jane.

Erik didn’t reply to that. “You’ve all done excellent work. I’ll give you glowing references.”

"How are you? I mean, it stinks for all of us, but this was your baby," Jane asked.

His sigh was long and pained. "It wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't going so well. To be making so much progress and then have it all pulled out from under my feet... it gets to a guy."

"Of course it does," she answered in a sympathetic murmur, resting her hand on his arm. He gave her a sad smile and put his large one over hers. He had been life-long friends with her father and when she came home for her post-doc he had served as her advisor. They had left the university at the same time, and while she was right in calling this his baby, her own input in the company's development wasn't far behind.

“How soon?” Darcy asked.

"What?" he asked. His eyes shifted from something far away to focus on her.

"How soon is it... you know, over?"

“Right now. Wherever you are, that’s it.”

“What about severance? Benefits?” Loki asked.

“Pay and benefits to the end of the month. I tried to get them to agree to something more, even just a few weeks, but without Thanos backing it the others said they couldn’t carry everything.”

Loki swallowed. It was the twenty-ninth. Too soon to get refills with his copay, way too late to find another job before he ran out. “Do you know what it would cost to keep our insurance?”

Erik told them. Loki didn't hear the rest of the meeting even though it went on for another half hour, all the logistics, who might buy this piece of equipment, where to sell the glassware, the sort of thing that he really couldn't bring himself to care about.

"We can take care of your stuff, Loki," Darcy said when they were finally released. "I know you must need to figure things out."

Jane nodded. "I hardly have anything running right now. I can do it."

"Thanks."

Darcy squeezed his arm. "I'm sure you'll come up with something."

He spent the next two hours at his computer, trying to find a solution. At four-oh-five he picked up his phone. It took another five minutes before he worked up the nerve to hit _call._

 

__

 


	10. Chapter 10

"What kind of favor do you need?" Thor asked.

A whole movie flashed through his head at once, the sort of dumb movie where the character needs a date for some event and they get someone to play along and then the two have some revelation that the whole audience saw coming in the first five minutes.

"Inlet - my job - is over. Our main VC just called to say he's pulling out, and when Erik called the other investors they said they couldn't cover."

"Oh my gosh. That's horrible. I'm so sorry."

"Thanks."

"So were you calling about, maybe, job leads?" Thor guessed. He wasn't sure what would make that the _biggest favor ever_ but he also couldn't think of anything else Loki would need from him.

"No, it's – I need something sooner than that. From you." Thor could hear him steel himself. "I have RA. Rheumatoid arthritis. It's an autoimmune thing, not like old people," Loki hastened to explain. "I'm taking a new drug cohort that has me in remission and I have four days left. Without them I've got maybe two weeks before I'm half disabled from pain."

"My gosh. I'm sorry, that's horrible," Thor said. He seemed to be saying that a lot today.

"Yeah. I'd say that I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but that's not really true. It's a pretty short list, though. I'm supposed to feel lucky that I have something that works at all," he finished bitterly.

"That doesn't seem that lucky."

"Doesn't feel it, either."

"What about that thing where you pay what the company had paid, and keep your insurance? Is that still a thing?"

Thor put his briefcase on the roof of the car to free up a hand. He unlocked the door and sat down, feet on the pavement and elbows on his knees, suddenly too exhausted even to sit up straight.

"It is, but I'd negotiated a lower salary in exchange for the top insurance package. Between that and student loan repayment I don't have any savings. There's no way I can keep this coverage, and the cheapest thing I could find online that would pay for these meds is totally out of my reach."

"I do have some savings," Thor said reluctantly. He'd been hoping to make a down payment on a house soon, but it was a horrible situation for Loki, and Thor knew if it'd been him he would want help.

"Oh, no! I'm not asking you for money. I wouldn't. I hoped that... maybe you'd put me on your insurance?"

"My insurance?" Thor echoed.

"Since we're married I could get added and have it be effective immediately. I only have a few days left of my medicine and I don't know what else to do. I've tried everything else I can think of."

Thor felt like he was sitting in the passenger seat, watching someone else in his body talking. "Yeah, I can put you on my coverage. I think I have time to get over to HR before they close. Can you text me whatever you think I'll need for the paperwork?"

"Of course. And I'll stay by my phone and not be driving or anything so if you have to call I'll be able to answer right away."

"Okay. I'll do it."

"Thanks, Thor. This means... well, I hope you never have to understand what it means."

 

The HR woman basically swooned as he spoke, which was good, since he was babbling and if he'd gotten anyone less sentimental they'd probably have popped his story like a balloon puppy. "Yeah, we've had a kind of quiet long-distance thing going for a long time now, and the annual conference was in Vegas this year and we just kind of thought, 'why not?' and so we did, and now he's starting to look at jobs nearer here so we can be together, and we figured we might as well just get all this stuff done right away so it's all set."

"That's just what I always say," she told him, nodding. "It really goes to show you, doesn't it?"

He had no idea what she was talking about. "Yeah," he said. "It does. It really, really does."

"Well. Let's just get you all set up and this should be processed in no time at all."

"Thanks. Um, how soon will he get his card? Just out of curiosity."

"You know, between you and me, it can take them a little while, even after he's added." She spoke like she'd seen the phrase _sotto voce_ once and had been practicing it ever since.

The form was remarkably short. They just seemed to take his word about getting married. She entered it while he sat there and he left the office at five til five with a printout confirming that the addition had been successfully uploaded and should be active within three business days.

Thor sent a brief text – _Forms done, should be processed by middle of week_ – and drove straight to the gym. He needed a brutal workout. He needed aches and pains and exhaustion because it was all sinking in - married without the possibility of divorce, Loki's company getting shut down, Loki needing to be added to Thor's coverage - and he needed escape.

It wasn't until he was limping into the shower that it hit him. _How long had Loki known he was going to need help?_


	11. Chapter 11

Loki got the text less than an hour after they hung up.

_Forms done, should be processed by middle of week_

Relief doused over him. Worried as he'd been, he'd still only been half-aware of it until it eased. _You're a lifesaver_ he answered.

_I'm glad I could help. That's a lousy situation_

_Yeah. Do you know when I'll get my card? And let me know how much is getting withheld for this_

The answer made his heart sink. _Couple weeks for the card. I'll find the cost later, headed to the gym_

_Have a good workout_

A couple of weeks. That was so not going to cut it.

He fixed his dinner by rote, the chopping and stirring offering none of the distraction he'd hoped for. His laptop lay at one end of the sofa where he'd left it after getting caught up on email over breakfast. He opened it and put on Netflix to watch while he ate even though the crunch of apple in his salad drowned out half the lines.

When his phone rang he swallowed too fast. "Hi, Thor!" Nice and cheerful. _No biggie, just a little snag, not like my life as I know it depends on this._ Why he felt the need to downplay it now he couldn't have said; he'd already told Thor everything. But to admit to such need ate at him.

"Hi, Loki." Thor's voice seemed flatter than it had before but he was probably just worn out from his exercise.

"Good workout?"

"I guess."

"That's nice." _That's nice?_ What the hell, Loki, could you be anymore boring? "I really appreciate your adding me. Did you find what it's costing you?"

"Yeah, it's one-fifty a month."

That was okay. That was okay and this would be okay too. "I'll pay you back, I promise." Thor made a noncommittal noise that made Loki's stomach twist and this whole thing get even harder. "So, you said I might not get a card for a couple weeks..."

"Yeah. Processing time."

"Did they say how I can use it until then? I'm running low on my meds."

"No. I guess they assume married couples live together and can share one for a while. How long have you got?"

"I run out Saturday. One day sooner and I could have gotten it filled on my old plan. It only lets me refill three days early."

"I guess I could meet you Saturday somewhere in between."

Thor's voice kept getting colder and Loki was frantically trying to sound more cheerful, hoping it would rub off. "I need them Saturday morning. I can drive to you on Friday and get them Friday night. I don't have anything else to do," he said.

"Okay. That works."

"I'll call and get these transferred. Where's most convenient for you?"

"I'd rather not go to my usual pharmacy. Just use Target. The one on the north side of St. Cloud."

"Thanks, Thor. I really do appreciate this."

"You're welcome. Listen, I gotta go, I haven't had dinner yet. I'll see you Friday."

"Cool, see you-"

_click._

For how quiet it was, it hit like a sucker punch. Their earlier conversation had been awkward, but Thor had seemed genuinely compassionate, and Loki had thought it had gone as well as it possibly could. But this... he wracked his brain, searching for what might have turned Thor so against him.

It had to have been the visit to HR. They must have grilled him. Loki had heard horror stories from green card applicants, the sort of questions newly married couples were asked to make sure the relationship was real. Things like _what color underwear is your husband wearing today?_ and _what did your wife drink on your first date?_. They'd forced him to make things up, spin a romance from the motes of dust that caught the long afternoon sunlight, white and useless as a license signed by unremembering hands.

In the morning he found his wilted salad still sitting on the coffee table.

 

Darcy called him on Wednesday. "I'm bored already," she announced in place of _hello_.

"I thought you were always complaining about the weekends being too short."

"Yeah, but when there's only two days you have to pack everything in. When it just keeps going, you run out."

"Did you regrout your shower?"

"Ugh. No."

"Don't I remember a particular part of your complaints being that you never had time to do that?"

"There's no excuse for you to be all reasonable at me," she moaned. "I called you for entertainment."

"How do you want me to entertain you?" he asked, smiling.

"Let's go out."

"Money? Do you have any job leads? Cause I don't."

"Okay, I'll come over and you make me lunch and we'll watch a movie and then we'll come back here and I'll make you dinner."

"Deal."

That ate up the rest of the day and he was grateful. By midafternoon Thursday he was regretting not suggesting a repeat. And then, somehow, it was Friday.

It was about two hours from Cannon Falls to Sauk Rapids. Loki left early, not long after lunch, figuring he could dodge traffic in the Cities and get there early enough to do a little sightseeing. That way he'd be ready to meet Thor whenever Thor was ready to meet. It was humiliating enough having to do this at all. A grown man with a doctorate and almost ten years of lab experience and still not able to take care of himself. The more smoothly he could make it go, the faster it would be over and the faster he could go back to pretending everything was okay.


	12. Chapter 12

Thor got through the week by keeping himself occupied every second and resolutely not thinking of Loki. Not thinking about how well they'd seemed to have hit it off, not thinking about those pictures on his phone, not thinking about whether Loki had masterminded this whole thing, not thinking about the images that had danced through his mind during his Sunday morning shower, not thinking about whether Loki had previously tried the same thing with someone else less gullible than Thor, and - most resolutely of all - not thinking about why he hadn't deleted those shots off his phone. The worst of it was the _hurt_. He'd been so angry when the thought first struck him, but over the following days the fierce burn of rage eased and left behind a cold, blistered ache. He'd liked Loki. He'd really liked him. Sometimes it hurt so much he could hardly breathe. Better to just avoid the whole thing.

Of course, leave it to Tony to misinterpret everything, almost certainly willfully. "So, you and Mr. Hot Stuff in touch?" he asked, moving Thor's electric jellyfish lamp and perching on the corner of Thor's desk.

"I have a guest chair, Tony," Thor pointed out, ignoring the question.

"Ooo, that either means yes or no and either way you've got it bad."

"You have no idea what I've got."

"Is that a clue? Okay, I'm assuming you used a condom, so what gets around those... herpes? Did he give you herpes? Isn't it too soon to tell? Though that would explain why you've been so cranky all week, if you've got open sores all over your man meat."

"Please never use that phrase again. And no, he didn't give me herpes." At least Thor could be confident of that much.

"Shit, is it crabs? Though I guess those you can kill, so maybe that's better-"

"He didn't give me anything, Tony. I just want to do my work. Please." Thor put every possible ounce of sincerity into his eyes. "I have a lot to catch up on."

It was always hard to tell whether things like that actually worked on Tony. He was more sensitive than most people gave him credit for, which in this case could make him either more or less likely to believe it. Either way, he acted like he did. "Alright, Romeo. Just remember me when it's time to pick your best man."

"I'm not going to marry him, Tony."

"Hey there. Never say never." Tony got up and made a show of putting Thor's jellyfish back where they belonged. "Okay?"

Thor just smiled and nodded in answer. 

 

Loki didn't contact him again until Friday morning, which made the pretending a little easier.

_I'm getting there early so I don't mess with your plans for the evening. lmk when you want to meet_

_K_

He half-expected Loki to text back with something else, but there was nothing until lunchtime. _Sorry, I was driving. Should be in St. Cloud by three_

 _K,_ Thor replied again.

Friday passed like a snail race. Too many meetings that didn't affect him enough to make him focus, not when put up against the looming question of what did Loki know and when. And then the other, even bigger question: how to find out. He couldn't talk to Tony about it even though Tony was his closest friend, because Tony would tell him to just ask, and then he'd be perplexed when Thor explained - as he had about so many things over the years - that people here just Didn't Do That. 

Thor got to Target at five-fifteen and got a drink at the pizza hut before texting Loki to say he'd arrived. Wrapping his hands around the sweating cup and feeling the cold seep into his fingers was grounding somehow. He pressed them to his face, urging the chill to seep through his skull and into his brain. He could do this. He could be cool.

Thor was staring out the window when Loki spoke behind him. "Hi, Thor."

"Loki. Hi."

"Sorry about the wait, the parking lot was nuts."

“It’s fine. The pharmacy’s in the back corner.”

Thor got up and wormed his way between the too-close tables, Loki following behind. Loki didn’t speak again until they were in the main aisle, where they could walk side by side. “Caught up from the conference yet?” he asked.

“Almost.”

Loki nodded. “It takes a while. The email alone…”

“Yeah.”

Loki cast him a curious glance but said nothing more. There was a line at the pharmacy and Thor pulled out his wallet. “Here’s the card. I’ll be over in the grocery section.”

“Thanks,” Loki said, taking it.

Loki got in line while Thor grabbed a basket from the messy stack left at the pharmacy register and went down the side aisle without looking back. He didn’t usually shop here because it was too much pre-made stuff, too unhealthy and too much money, but he hadn’t felt like cooking when he got home these past few days so frozen food and packaged noodles were good enough. He got his basket half-filled with pizza and ramen, threw in a bag of frozen peas and a bunch of bananas as a token nod to nutrition, and then went to wander the wine aisle. He was fairly sure his liver was going to rebel at some point but it hadn’t yet and right now oblivion was sounding pretty damn good. He must have wandered up and down the row three times, making his selections almost entirely by how appealing he found the label, before Loki found him.

“Hi. Sorry about the wait,” Loki said.

“It’s okay. Got your stuff?” Thor asked, as though Loki weren’t standing there with six near-bursting white paper bags.

“Yeah. Thank you. Here’s your card.”

“Oh my god. That’s why you’ve been mooning around all week. You just got married,” Tony said behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

Loki looked over at the man behind Thor. Shorter than them, and older, with a New York accent and wearing an outfit that suggested he'd felt at his prime in the nineties and never really got over it. Everything was going in slow motion, Thor turning to speak and his mouth opening and closing before he stammered, "No, we're not."

"Come on, man, the game is up. I know an insurance card when I see one and that means you got married." He turned to Loki and held out his hand. "You must be Mister Hot Stuff. I'm Tony, Thor's oldest and dearest friend. Well, dearest until you. Obviously."

When Thor didn't say anything Loki didn't see any choice but to shake Tony's hand. "Loki. A pleasure to meet you."

"So you two eloped, huh? Robbing your best friend of a party full of drunken bridesmaids."

"You're engaged, Tony. Pepper's way too good for you and you know better than to mess that up."

"Hey, hey! Again, may I remind you, principles. Like the one that insists I take you two out and get to know Loki here."

"No, Tony, it's not what you think-"

"It's exactly what I think. You eloped and were going to keep your new husband a secret but now you're busted and there's nothing to do but go along with it. You want to go out, don't you, Loki?"

"Well, actually, we'd planned-"

"Come on, I promise this will be better than what you planned. Unless it's sex. Which it probably is. Almost certainly. But you can still have that later. I just have to get some wine and I'm good to go."

If only they had been one aisle over everything would have been different. But Loki had had to go up to the pharmacy counter with an insurance card with someone else's name and his own ID and explain that they were newlyweds, and wait for her to call the insurance company and get confirmation that Loki was indeed Thor Odinson's husband and covered on the same plan. And if only Thor had been browsing one aisle over, that same pharmacy tech wouldn't have come around the corner and given Loki a warm smile. "They're both so handsome, which one is he?" she asked him.

"This one," Loki said weakly, resting his hand on Thor's arm.

She gave him a wink. "A guy could do worse. You two have a good night, now."

"You too."

They stood in silence until she'd picked out her wine – something white and tooth-rottingly sweet, but in the interest of manners Loki managed not to cringe – and had left them alone.

"See? No point in denying it, which means no point arguing, which means I'm taking the two of you to Argento's. Lemme just call Pep and tell her to meet us there. She's going to be so excited for you, Thor."

Thor made a last-ditch effort. "We'd love to, but we've got all this frozen stuff, Tony."

Tony peered into the basket. "You were going to feed Mister Secret Husband on _that_? Now you really have no excuse not to let me take you out. Come on, I'll help you put everything back. Just get the wine and the bananas. Do you two need lube? It's right on the way to the checkout. No trouble at all."

Loki cleared his throat. "No thank you. We're fine. Thanks."

Tony pelted him with so many questions that by the time they got in line, Loki felt like he'd been through a hailstorm. Thor had followed in an equally stormy silence though Loki kept pausing before answering, giving Thor the chance to interject with whatever tale he wanted to tell.

It was like watching a light switch, seeing Thor take his turn at the cashier. Instant cheerfulness, all friendliness and _thank-you-I'm-well-how-are-you?_

The storm came back when he turned to where Tony and Loki stood waiting for him. "You two just leave your car here. I will be your chauffeur this evening," Tony said as they passed through the automatic doors. The one on the left was dragging in its track and squeaking. Loki knew exactly how it felt.

Thor shook his head. "That's okay. We'll drive."

Tony's eyes darted between the two of them. "As long as you promise to drive straight there."

"We promise," Thor sighed.

Loki smiled and nodded his head. At least they wouldn't be expected to share the back seat and hold hands and look cute or something.

The temptation to get in his car and drive straight home was palpable, like even his bones didn't want to do this. But Thor was still acting weird and angry and whatever he was upset about could only be worsened if Loki disappeared and left Thor to explain by himself. "Suck it up, Loki," he sighed to himself. He cast a despairing look up at the lowering sky and stuck the key in the ignition.


	14. Chapter 14

Along with not wanting to go to dinner in general, Thor didn’t want to go to Argento’s in particular. It had been three years since his last time eating at the nicest restaurant in St. Cloud and he would have been perfectly happy to let that number keep growing. When he was in high school, Thor had gotten surgery to repair a torn ligament in his knee. It was considered fully healed but there was this one little spot, just to the right of his kneecap, that months later still hurt when it was prodded. At first he couldn't leave it alone, poking at it throughout the day as though checking to see if it had gotten better. Finally he broke the habit and it had been over fifteen years since his fingers had touched that spot with any pressure firmer than the stroke of a washcloth. Betrayal was like that, too. Some things never really heal. You just learn to change yourself instead.

 

They were parked in different areas of the lot and so all three cars gathered near the exit before Tony started towards the street. Thor wanted to go next for the simple fact that he needed to calm down and spending the next twenty minutes looking at Loki's car was not going to help. On the other hand, Loki had gotten what he wanted and Thor wasn't entirely confident he could be trusted not to simply disappear. He caught Loki's eye and inclined his head. _You first._ Loki smiled at him and followed Tony.

Thor knew the minute Loki's left turn signal came on that Tony was leading them on a terrible route to Argento's. Thor had been telling him for years, basically ever since he moved here: First Street looks like the best bet but there's too many lights, you're better off going over to Fourth and dealing with the occasional stop sign. He'd even tried again just a few weeks ago.

"Fourth's too small for me," Tony laughed, like always.

"And First's too slow for _me_."

"Sometime we'll have to race it."

"Fourth is residential. There's kids and stuff. It's not for racing."

"We'll try speed-limit racing. Trust me, it'll be a hit. The next big thing, you turn around and all the kids'll be doing it."

"Isn't that basically what Google maps does?"

"Mmm. But they don't have a playboy sexpot and a Nordic god doing their mapping."

"You're not a playboy anymore. You love Pepper."

"...and she's awesome and I don't deserve her and I'd be an idiot to do anything to mess that up, yes, I know. But I'm still a playboy in _here_ ," he answered, pounding his chest.

"Okay, Tony. You'll always have that."

Thor was pretty sure he'd known that Pepper was the one before Tony did. Usually Thor's Monday lunches were filled by Tony regaling him with far-too-vivid descriptions of his dates, but the Monday after his first date with Pepper, Tony had simply smiled and said, "She's really great."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." After that it was simply a matter of time and hoping that Pepper liked him back.

They had settled on a May wedding, that being the month that seemed safest in terms of avoiding both snow and mosquitoes. Though now it was the middle of April and the skies were getting lower and more threatening with every turn of Thor's wheels. It would be just his luck if, when they all left the restaurant, the roads were too bad for Loki to drive home.

Would Loki assume that he would be invited to stay at Thor's? Would Thor be able to avoid it? What if all the hotels were full and Loki couldn't find anywhere to go and it would be just like with Mary and Joseph when all they wanted was to find a place for her to get some privacy to have little baby Jesus, like in the pageant at church where Thor had played Balthasar, the tallest of the Three Wise Men, for five years straight.

 

Dinner came with a barrage of questions. Pepper - and Tony, too, for all his blase manner and denials - was deep in last-minute wedding planning and so he supposed it made sense that it was what they wanted to hear about first but Thor couldn't help wishing that they'd instead felt like grilling Loki on... oh, anything. When they finally did – even with Tony dropping leading questions to try to drag Thor into the conversation – it was like unbuttoning a pair of too-tight jeans.

And then it was time to go and Tony and Pepper smiled like they expected him to kiss Loki right there in the busy parking lot in public.


	15. Chapter 15

Argento's was twenty minutes away, long enough that the skies had gone from threatening to promising to giving a new layer of snow to replace what had been plowed and gravelled over two days ago. Thor took the rear with Loki driving in the middle and Loki wondered if he was afraid Loki would simply drive home if he weren't being watched. The temptation certainly was there; Thor's foul mood had clearly not lifted in the past days. Loki knew he ought to ask what was wrong and talk through whatever had caused it. If only an upbringing spent being reminded of the importance of _niceness_ was so easily discarded. It wasn't even nice to let things like this go unaddressed, he knew from more time spent watching talk shows than he'd like to admit, but bad habits are hard to break when everyone you know has the same ones. _Talking about your feelings doesn't get the crops in,_ his father used to say. There hadn't been any farmers in the family since the eighteen hundreds. It didn't matter.

There was a lovely woman waiting inside the front door of the restaurant. She kissed not only Tony but also Thor on the cheek and when she spoke Loki wasn't at all surprised to find she sounded vaguely Californian. Despite the crowd standing near the hostess stand and people packed like herring into the low-ceilinged bar space, Pepper only had to murmur her name and they were being shown to a table.

"That was impressive," Loki said when they were seated.

"I run the development office at the university and the family that owns this place, the Lundgren's, are big supporters. Since I started, alumni donations are up nearly six percent, which I know doesn't sound big but it's enough to find a new building for the physical engineering department."

"Which is how we met," Tony said smoothly.

"And the Lundgren's gave me a standing reservation as a thank-you."

Thor nodded. "That's not too bad."

She had a friendly laugh that in other circumstances must have been infectious. "Definitely not."

"So I hear you got married without inviting your best friend."

"Well, you know. Don't want to make a big deal," Thor answered.

She grinned and shook her head. "You know, I've lived here four years and I still can't get used to it."

"Fourteen. I win," Tony told her.

"I think it's the weather," said Loki. "When everyone's stuck indoors together for nine months a year, it's better for everyone not to make waves. You just don't talk about stuff. It helps keep the harmony."

"But disagreements have to come up sometimes."

"Mmm. I remember my parents going days at a time not talking to each other."

"That doesn't seem healthy," she pointed out.

Loki shrugged. "That's the Midwest for you. Did you hear the one about when Lena was upset?"

Pepper shook her head.

"Ole finally got her to admit something was wrong. 'You never tell me you love me, Ole,' she told him, and he goes, 'Uff da, Lena. I told you I loved you when we got married. If something changes I'll let you know.'"

"Sounds nuts to me," she said, shaking her head. "Well, even if _you_ don't want to make a big deal about the wedding, _I_ want to hear all about it."

"It... well, it was spontaneous," Loki said hesitantly once it was clear Thor wasn't going to answer.

"Yeah? Who proposed?" She moved her empty bread plate to the side so she could put her elbows on the table and lean forwards with her chin on her fist.

"It was all such a blur I don't even remember. Do you?" Thor asked, turning to Loki.

 

It would not have been unreasonable for Thor to be a little upset after having to lie about their relationship on Monday, but now it was Friday and if anything Thor seemed to have grown more upset and Loki began to think it had to be something else souring Thor's mood. He had been so charming and easy-going in Vegas; it was hard to imagine that man nurturing a grudge over something Loki was helpless to control. It was bad enough that when Tony settled down to giving him the third degree he was actively grateful.

"Semiconductors," he answered to Tony's question about his speciality.

"Ah. A marriage of true minds," Tony said. "That's Shakespeare, by the way," he added when no one replied. "So, big guy, do we have to worry about you leaving us?"

Thor shook his head. "I'm pretty settled."

"So you get to do the moving, Loki? Where will you be coming from?" Pepper asked.

"I live in Cannon Falls. As far as moving... um... well, there's work to consider." As though he had work keeping him at home.

Tony nodded. "You're in industry there, or do you commute?"

"Industry. Yes."

"You want to stay in it?"

"It's served me well enough so far. No complaints."

"St. Cloud seems to be getting a lot of startups these days. I bet you'll find something in no time flat," Tony said.

"Torta tenerina. Compliments of the house," interrupted the waiter as plates of a thin chocolate cake appeared before them. These were followed by small glasses of port, the deep plummy flavor emphasizing the richness of the cake.

Tony insisted on paying the bill, which, had Loki known, he wouldn't have ordered the – still expensive - cheapest thing on the menu, but at least it was free. He and Thor had parked on one side of the lot while Tony and Pepper were on the other, so they said their goodbyes in the still-crowded entryway. Pepper kissed Loki on the cheek even though they'd just met.

When they reached their cars they turned and stood together, smiling and waving, as first Pepper and then Tony pulled out onto the main road. The falling snow caught their taillights and glowed like a badly done painting of hell.

_Did I do something?_ No. Waaaaay too direct.

_Is something wrong?_ Still pushing it.

_Is there anything wrong?_ Better...

"That was really nice," Loki said. Good. A neutral opening. Then Thor would agree, Loki could suggest they go get a coffee, and maybe with a warm mug radiating its comfort into his hands he could find a way to get the words out.

"Yeah. Have a safe drive home," Thor said.


	16. Chapter 16

Dinner had been on the early side and there were still three hours before the gym closed. Thor drove straight there trying and utterly failing not to think.

The more he had stewed, the more sure he had become that Loki had known before the conference. Everything had gone so smoothly for him, finding in Thor not only an easy but a convenient target to marry. Why else would they have such a restrictive license were it not because Loki wanted to ensure that Thor couldn't simply divorce him before he got what he needed? It wasn't like they were common – less than one percent of Nevada marriages used that type of license, at least according to wikipedia - so it had to have been chosen, rather than the default offering. And Thor had no reason to choose it. Loki did.

He spent nearly three hours behaving as though the punching bag were the architect of all his problems. He ignored the various closing announcements – half an hour, twenty minutes, fifteen – until they reached ten. His shower was less than satisfying but it would do until he got home and could have a proper one.

The air had grown cold enough that his hair was in icicles about his face before he reached his car.

 

He woke the next morning resolved not to think about it. On Monday he would contact someone in the law department and get some advice about how to undo their undoable marriage and until then there was no point in thinking about it. That worked for the four hours until his phone rang.

"Hi, Tony," he answered, trying to sound normal.

"What the hell was that last night?" Tony demanded. "You keep acting like that and you're going to find yourself looking at divorce papers before you've even got your suit back from the dry cleaners."

 _If only,_ Thor thought. "My suit's fine. I didn’t have to take it in."

“Okay, really not the point. It’s obvious that there’s trouble in paradise and you’ve only been married… what, a week?”

“Eight days. Today is day eight.”

“Eight days. You should still be all honeymoony like you were when you first got back. I was really happy for you, you know that? I mean, it's been, what, four years since you and-”

“It’s really not something I want to discuss, Tony,” Thor interrupted.

“Just because you don’t want to, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

Thor heaved a sigh. “Look, everything’s fine.”

“That would be a lot easier to believe if you hadn’t just said you don’t want to talk about it. But I can take a hint. Or, you know, a ten-foot tall neon sign. Pep wants to know if we’re still on for broomball.”

“Still refusing to believe it’s a real thing?”

“Basically. I showed her the rink schedule and everything, and it’s right there, ‘Open broomball game four pm’ but it didn’t help.”

“Has to see it to believe it.”

“Trust me, I know where she’s coming from.”

“Yeah, we’re on. I’ll see you there.”

“See you there. And don’t think that just because I’m dropping the other thing doesn’t mean I’m not going to bring it up again tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t think that for a second."

 

Pepper took the ice slowly, holding on to the wooden railing as she tested out her sneakers on the rough sheet of ice.

Broomball turned out to be just what he needed. The punching bag had worn him out and let him blow off some steam but it also had kept him focused on his problems. Keeping his eye on the ball as it skimmed across the ice, being aware of what everyone else on his team was doing, blocking his opponents' brooms with his own, all while trying to score, took all his concentration.

"So, what did you think?" Thor asked Pepper as they headed indoors for something hot.

"I think you people are all crazy. But you were right, it is fun."

"You just have to wait until the skaters have cut it up some. You can't play when it's smooth or you fall and break things."

"I would imagine."

"Hey, tell Pep about that time you were in high school."

Thor laughed. "I was on the high school team, and we had an away game in Nimrod, and one of the kids on their team was this super-arrogant guy..."

He strung out the story as they made it through the line and didn't finish until they were sitting down at the long row of windows where they could watch the figure skaters practicing.

"So Thor, how are things?" Pepper asked far too casually, wrapping her hands around her cup.

Thor looked at Tony.

"Hey, I said _I_ wouldn't bring it up. I can't make commitments on her behalf."

"You know how long-distance things are. One way or another it'll work out."

It had to. He just needed to find the right lawyer.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to stmonkeys for the lovely drawing of Loki being pensive! He's got so much on his mind...
> 
> Also, 'bars' are cookie bars.

 

 

Loki had allowed himself one week to wallow in self-pity before beginning his job hunt. Accordingly, he got up the following Monday morning at the same time as he had gotten up for work, started the coffee maker, showered, drank a cup of coffee, and went back to bed because that was a stupid idea. If he had to be broke and humiliatingly indebted to someone who a) he barely knew and b) apparently hated him, at least he could try to deal with it well-rested.

When he got up the second time he had four texts from Darcy.

_Hey are you looking at jobs today? I want to come over so we can look together_

_I'm bored and lonely_

_Loki_

_Loki_

He got another cup of coffee before writing her back. _Fine but I'm still in my bathrobe, give me an hour for clothes and breakfast_

She didn't reply for almost half an hour. _Sorry, fell asleep. Eleven good?_

_You bet_

He filled the time going through review of lawyers, first local and then Nevadan, each call a little more frantic as he was told they couldn't take his case. His hair was threatening to turn white by the time Darcy arrived. She got there at eleven fifteen, toting her laptop sachel and a bag of coffee. When she saw him at the door she held it up. "Since I'm always drinking yours. And I made bars last night."

They set up on his dining room table. Loki started another pot of coffee and Darcy put the bars in the microwave to warm up and when they sat down to work they had caffeine and sugar and computers and what else did anyone need in life?

"What?" Darcy asked and for a second Loki was afraid he'd said it out loud.

"What what?"

She shook her head. "I know you and I know that face and I know there's something besides work bugging you, so spill."

"It's nothing, Darce. Really."

"Really." She fixed her eyes on him and didn't blink until he cracked with a hollow laugh.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin. Trust me, you don't want to hear about this one."

"Doesn't mean you don't need to talk about it."

She shoved the plate towards him and he picked the one that looked like it had the highest chocolate chip-to-cookie ratio. They were still warm and the chocolate stuck to his fingers. He moved it to his other hand to lick it off and then those fingers were covered instead. The story of his life, played out in chocolate.

"I met a guy."

"Okay..."

He knew from her tone. _You always meet guys._ "We hit it off so well. We couldn't stop talking, skipped the keynote and closing stuff, just... we went out and it was just hours of talking and laughing and drinking and everything was going so great, and then that night..."

Darcy went pale. "He didn't- I mean..."

"No. He didn't. We didn't. What we _did_ do..." He bit the bullet. "We got married."

"Oh my god. That's not what I thought you were going to say. I mean, it's better, right? It's not like he hurt you. This is fixable, it's got to be easy to get a divorce there, with how easy it is to get married."

"I can't yet."

"What? Why?"

"Last week. After Erik told us. I looked and looked for something I could afford to get me through until I find a new job and get coverage again and there was _nothing._ So I called Thor."

"Thor's your... him?"

"Yeah. Thor's him. And I explained and I asked him to add me and he did but the stuff in HR went so badly that he hates me now."

"What happened? What did they say?"

"I don't know."

"You didn't ask?"

"Of course I didn't ask," he snapped. "He was nice, he went to HR, and now he hates me. What else am I supposed to think?"

"Maybe it's costing him more than he expected."

Loki sighed. "I gave him a check on Friday. It didn't help."

"Maybe he's just stressed out about something? If he was so nice before he can't hate you when all you did was ask for something you really need. You should try texting him again, just be like, 'hey,' and see what he says."

"I don't want to be pushy. If he doesn't want to talk to me I don't want to bother him."

"Seriously? Okay. What did you do in high school if you couldn't tell if a guy liked you or not?"

"In a small town sixteen years ago? Tried to get transferred into his gym class so I could see if he snuck a peak while I was showering."

"Oh," she said, crestfallen. "I keep forgetting you're pre-texting."

Loki groaned and buried his face in his hands. "I'm stuck being married to someone who hates me _and_ I'm old."

"You're not old. Just older than me. Gimme your phone."

"Not a chance in hell."

"I just want to flirt for you."

"Flirting is what got me into this."

"Then we have to think up what to say."

"Fine. But if it doesn't work I'm quitting."

"Just try for a few days."

He groaned. "Fine."

He did try. He sent three texts on Monday, two of Tuesday, and one on Wednesday. Darcy could hardly ask for more than that. That was why, when his phone rang on Friday, Thor's was about the last name on earth he expected to show up on his screen, but there it was.

"Hi, Thor," he said, wary.

"Hi, Loki. Listen... I have to ask you a favor."


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More awesome art from stmonkeys! Say hi to Tony. :)
> 
> Apologies in advance to legal scholars because I suspect I've butchered some of this.

 

 

At least Loki seemed to be getting the hint. Not everyone did. Some people thought they just had to show some persistence to make the other person crack, or they thought it might seem romantic that they couldn't let go. The sad truth was that some people fell for that kind of thing, even people who thought it couldn't happen to them. But Loki wasn't doing that. He texted Thor three times on Monday, each time as though unaware of Thor's pointed terseness in his replies, but when he wrote on Tuesday there were only two, and Wednesday, just one. Nothing at all on Thursday and Thor's hopes began to rise for a peaceful weekend in which he could pretend none of this was real. That hope lasted until Friday. On Friday, Tony struck.

He popped his head in Thor's door while Thor was sitting there minding his own business and said what had to be the cruelest words in the English language. Not that Thor knew they were cruel, not at first. At first they were almost nonsense.

"Hey, Thor, Pep wants to know if Loki's vegetarian or if chicken is okay."

"What?"

"She's been reminding me all week to ask and I keep forgetting but the final numbers are due to the caterer today and she said if we don't know then we have to get him the vegetarian plate to be safe and if he wants the chicken I have to trade with him and eat rabbit food on my wedding day and that's not going to happen. So which should I tell her he wants?"

It was right when Tony said _caterer_ that understanding crystallized out of the swampy mess of confusion.

"You want Loki to come to your wedding?"

Tony sighed and cast suspicious glances along the hall. "He's your husband. Of course he's coming. Don't tell me you haven't invited him."

"Me? You didn't invite him!"

"I did! The envelope said _plus one_ , I remember it distinctly."

"And I RSVP'ed just for myself."

"But that was before. It's obvious that he's coming. That's the default."

"Actually, I think inviting people who you want to show up is the default."

"Well consider him invited. It can't be that big a deal, right? It must be hard finding time to be together, so here's a little more for you. No need to thank me. I just have to know what to tell Pepper. And I'm on a schedule here," Tony added, leaning forwards to check the clock on Thor's computer. "I have a reporter coming to do a glowing profile of me in three minutes."

Something in Thor's chest felt strange, crunched up, like his ribs were collapsing in on themselves and not letting him breathe. "Loki's not vegetarian," he said.

“See? That wasn’t so hard. She’s trying to figure out how to fit in another seat at the head table so you don’t have to worry about him getting stuck with a bunch of ninety-year-old relatives. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go be adored.”

“Bye,” Thor said.

He didn't stop staring at the empty doorway for a long time after Tony left. It would have been much easier if he’d at least gotten something helpful from the people over in the law school. But then, they might have been more helpful if he’d actually explained the whole situation rather than saying that he’d read about this whole ‘covenant marriage’ thing in the news recently and was curious if the government could really enforce the restrictions.

“My experience is with Minnesota marriage law, you understand, so I can’t claim to be certain, but I’m inclined to say that the government can and will enforce all stipulations. People get romantic ideas about marriage but as far as the state is concerned it’s a legal contract and there’s no purpose in those existing if they’re not enforced.”

“But what about when it was a mistake? Like, say, a couple people did it while they were drunk? Nevada is one of the states that has it, right?” That last bit was _particularly_ off-hand, like he couldn’t quite remember what he’d read but it didn’t really matter, nothing personal, just idle curiosity.

“I’m not sure which states. Like I said, I focus on Minnesota. But if someone gets married while they’re drunk… well, that’s not too good. A guy needs to think before he acts, ya know. I’d say that legally, it would depend on the exact wording of the law, whether it goes into a discussion of the conditions under which a contract can be entered into. But, ya know, it’s not my state.”

“Uh-huh. I understand. So if I were curious and wanted to learn more…”

“You could try contacting marriage law scholars in those states. That wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”

“Okay. Thanks. I probably won’t. Idle curiosity, you know.”

“Okay, well, you take care.”

“You too.”

“Uh-huh. Bye-bye now.”

“Bye. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye.”

It took him two days to track down who seemed like the most likely people to contact with his questions, another couple days after that to settle on the wording of his email, and he was just setting up a new gmail address with no clues to his identity when Tony popped his head in and burst Thor’s balloon.

It took him another hour after Tony left to make himself pick up his phone.

“Hi, Loki? I have to ask a huge favor…”


	19. Chapter 19

When Loki saw Thor's name on his caller ID he could hardly have been more dumbfounded had his phone grown gills and turned into a clownfish. It took two more rings to jolt him out of his daze and make him hit _answer._

"Hi, Thor," he said, and if he sounded wary, that was really only reasonable.

"Hi, Loki." Thor sighed. "I have to ask a huge favor."

The temptation to be rude was very nearly irresistible but Thor had done the favor he needed, so instead of a dour _uh-huh_ he gave a more neutral, "Yeah?"

"Tony and Pepper's wedding is in two weeks, and they want you to go. That is, they're assuming that you are and I didn't know how to get you out of it."

"You want me to be your date for a wedding?"

Thor's voice took on an edge of heat. "I did it when you needed something."

"It's not that. I was surprised, is all. What's the date?"

"May twenty-fourth. The rehearsal dinner is May twenty-third and you're expected there, too."

Loki scratched it down on the back of a receipt. As though there was any way he'd forget.

"Is there a convenient hotel?"

Thor didn't answer.

"Okay, I'll check google. I thought you might know something."

"Tony's assuming that you're staying at my place. He reserved a limo for us so we don't have to bother with driving." Thor's voice sounded hollow, like he was speaking through a tube.

Loki swallowed. Thor was right; when Loki needed something, he'd done it. Loki could hardly refuse this. " What's your address?"

"Two-twelve Olaf Drive."

"Okay. I'll be there on the twenty-third. Afternoon okay?"

"Can you get here by four? That's when I'm getting picked up for the rehearsal, and the dinner is right after."

"Sure. How fancy is all this?"

"Casual the first night. Whatever you wear to drive up is fine, he reserved a sushi-boat place. The wedding is semi-formal."

"Sure. I'll be there by four. Friday after next."

"Friday after next," Thor echoed.

After they hung up Loki put his head on the table and wondered if he could somehow stay like that forever.

 

Loki got himself through the next two weeks by throwing himself headlong into his job hunt. Unfortunately, the super-specialized skill set he’d honed for himself, the one that made him such a highly desirable employee for one very particular type of work, also meant that the job opportunities were painfully limited. He didn’t want to move far from home, and he _really_ didn’t want to move to Silicon Valley, but after a week of sending his resume to even vaguely local companies in the hope that they were just about to post a suitable position, he started applying for about anything he found.

By the middle of the week the requests for phone interviews started to trickle in, and by Friday morning, when he was packing his things up to drag his reluctant self back to St. Cloud, he had four scheduled for the next week. At least it gave him something to tell Thor, that the end of their problems was probably in sight.

It was a beautiful day for a drive. Thin clouds drifted across the face of the sun without blocking it, and it was high enough when he left that it wasn’t in his eyes, and the air was fresh and cool and when he got to the turnoff for St. Cloud he desperately wanted to keep going but his bossy GPS kept snapping at him to take the next exit, and with a tightening of his jaw he did what it said.

He got to Thor’s at a quarter to four, just enough time to carry his things inside and freshen up a little.

Thor met him at the door. "Thank you for coming," he said, looking uncomfortable.

"It's only fair."

"The guest room's this way." Thor turned abruptly and was headed down the hall before Loki even got the door closed behind him.

He caught up to find Thor standing in a small room, cheerfully decorated and full of sunlight. "There's no closet, but the wardrobe is empty," Thor said, pointing. "And the bathroom is down the hall, second door on the right. I'll let you get settled in. The limo should be here in ten minutes."

Loki went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face before using his damp hands to smooth down his hair. He'd allowed himself to think that maybe now that he was returning a favor Thor might have relaxed some but that hope was now gone. _Dick. Maybe he should move to Vegas, if being there improves his personality that much._ His reflection gazed back at him without answer.

He stayed in there until Thor yelled down the hall that the limo was pulling up. A quick swipe of the towel across his face and he was as ready as he was ever going to be.

They got into the limo and leaned back with their arms crossed, gliding in silence through the after-school pre-rush-hour lull. Ten minutes into the ride Loki leaned forwards and pushed the button to raise the divider.

"What should I tell people I am? They're going to ask," he said.

"Just say you're with me. Be vague," Thor told him.

Loki nodded and looked out the window. Gold-green trees and gold-green grass and bursts of flowers from the recent rain and all he could see was gray.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to stmonkeys for the wonderful Thor drawing! Such a mix of emotions on his pretty face.

 

Tony was waiting by the door when they got to the gardens where the wedding was to be. “Lokes, glad you could make it,” he said, clapping Loki on the shoulder. “There’s a few other out-of-town companions in the pavilion café. I’ve got an open tab and there’s probably some open champagne by now. Or you can enjoy the garden, if you want.”

“It _is_ a beautiful day,” Loki said.

“All the credit goes to Pepper. I swear she’s been up since two conjuring the perfect clouds. We’re going to do a few run throughs and the limos will be back at five thirty to take us to dinner.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Have a good time.”

“You, too.” Tony was watching and so Loki gave Thor a warm smile. The sort of smile that might fool anyone.

 

The rehearsal went… well, it was good that they had one.

“The sun’s in my eyes. I can’t see anything,” Pepper said.

“Pretty sure Tony planned that so you wouldn't change your mind,” Thor told her.

She flashed him that open grin that went so far in making people like her. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but I do want my memories to be something more than a squinty blur.”

_At least you’d have them,_ Thor didn’t say.

“Alright, everybody. Quarter turn to the right,” Tony announced.

“Now I have the glare off the pond in my eyes,” said the minister.

At last they hit on the right angle where everyone who needed to see was able to do so, they did one full run through, and were barely five minutes late in meeting the cars.

The dinner was easier than Thor had feared. Ostensibly, everyone had a seat, but it didn’t take long until people were wandering about the room, bouncing from table to table to chat and chasing after boats that carried particularly tempting rolls. Thor and Loki barely spoke ten words to each other the whole time without it even looking obvious. Another thing that helped was that Tony had not only reserved the entire restaurant but had apparently requested a continuous supply of sake. The cups held hardly more than a single swallow’s worth but they were refilled almost constantly and both he and Loki got Tony’s money’s worth. It made it easier to pretend that everything was fine.

 

They collapsed into the back of the limo and stared blearily out the window as the engine purred its way through the silent streets. He was just together enough to unlock his door and let them in, turning to give a friendly wave to the driver who had waited to make sure they made it in.

When he got inside Loki was gone down the hall.

Thor was up first in the morning and despite the churning in his stomach he put on a pot of coffee because the pounding in his head was even worse. Loki appeared in the doorway just as it was sputtering the last few drops into the carafe. “Good morning,” Thor said.

“Good morning.”

“Coffee?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

“What do you like for breakfast? Besides waffles. I don’t have an iron.”

“Toast is fine.”

Thor threw a few slices in the toaster and set out the butter and jam. _This is it,_ he told himself. _When we’re done eating and my head isn’t killing me anymore, I’ll ask._ It wasn't fair to go on assuming like this; he didn't like to do it, and he didn't want to keep doing it. And it really was entirely possible that Loki was as innocent in all of this as Thor was. But finding the words... that was the thing. That was the fucking thing on which absolutely everything hinged and he didn't know how to get them out of his mouth. Every time he'd tried, just by himself, talking into the bathroom mirror, he had choked.

The crunching of his first slice was like a battering ram trying to escape through his eyeballs. The second slice was a little better, more like a hammer. The third was getting into croquet-mallet territory and when he was halfway through he resolved that once he finished with it he’d ask.

“If you'll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of reading to do,” Loki said when Thor had two bites left.

Thor didn’t see him again until they were nearly finished dressing for the wedding. The guest room was small and the only mirror was on the vanity and so Loki had come out into the hall to check his reflection in the full-length in the bathroom.

"You didn't come out for lunch."

"I lost track of time. The papers I brought were really interesting."

"Sounds nice. I have a stack of undergrad essays to grade and most of them tell me little more than the fact that the writer clearly didn't read the textbook. There's a club sandwich in the fridge for you, we won't get to eat until late tonight. Be careful. The tomatoes are pretty drippy."

"Thank you."

When Thor went to the kitchen to get some coffee – it was going to be a long night, and this was almost certainly his last chance at caffeine, unless one of the caterers could be wheedled into taking pity on him – and he found Loki sitting at the table, eating, his shirt and suit jacket draped over the back of the chair beside him.

Loki paled as Thor came in. "Sorry. I only brought the one dress shirt, and I didn't want to risk getting anything on it."

"It's fine," Thor said.

 

The limo arrived at five-thirty this time, carrying them right to the gardens. There weren't many indoor event spaces available and so the guys were on one side of a makeshift divider while the women were on the other, and their conversation and laughter carried back and forth between the two. Thor had left Loki at the outdoor bar where the guests were mingling as the last minute set-up was being done. The florist came in, gave Tony an appraising look, and dashed out in horror.

"I think June is worried about my boutonnière, Pep," Tony called over the folding wall.

"What did you do to it?" she yelled back.

"Just a little something to jazz it up."

"Remember it's not too late for me to change my mind."

_Like there was any chance she actually would,_ Thor thought, smiling at their banter. They were both so clearly happy, so well suited. Not perfect, but perfect for each other.

Monday he would work up the nerve to start calling lawyers in Nevada. There had to be a way out of the situation he was stuck in. There had to still be some way he could have this for himself.

June returned with a new boutonnière for Tony which she pinned onto his jacket while Pepper shouted orders over the dividing wall that he was not to alter it on pain of something really horrible. It turned out the threats were not needed because she wasn't even done pinning it before the music started and it was time for Tony and Thor to go take their places.

At least this wedding he'd remember.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooo, double art day! Thank you, stmonkeys! So many emotions...

The ceremony was pretty much like every other one Loki had ever been to.

Scratch that. The ceremony was pretty much like every other one Loki could remember. He had to assume a fake Elvis made things different.

He was seated on Tony's side of the room between two people who knew each other. At first they politely included him in their conversation, asking how he knew Tony (at least they accepted his vague "I'm with one of the party," rather than probing) but their conversation slowly turned until they were talking across him and he was about to suggest they switch seats when the music started.

There was the usual lecture about it being a serious thing, and then the usual vows, _Will you take this man_ , and _I will_ , and then a candle lighting and blah blah blah and then they all trailed out for cocktails.

He knew he shouldn't be so down on it. From what he'd seen of them, Pepper and Tony seemed good together and the people who knew them well seemed to agree. And it wasn't like he'd ever had any grand romantic notions about how he had wanted his own wedding to be (if he wanted one at all, which he wasn't sure about either), and yet... well, it wasn't easy.

The cocktail hour lasted for two. Thor was drinking even faster than last night and acting even stranger so after the champagne toast Loki stuck with sparkling water. If things got too weird, one of them needed to be clear-headed. "I have an early drive home," he explained, false regret large in his voice, when Tony commented.

Dinner was in the same room where the wedding had been, the rows of chairs replaced by linen-draped tables with small and tasteful centerpieces that suggested what Tony's boutonnière might have originally looked like.

Pepper caught Loki's arm as they started to go in. "I'm so sorry I wasn't able to fit you in at the head table," she said. "I did put you next to my friends, though, so you should be spared the worst of the family stuff."

"It's fine," he told her. "I don't mind."

"You're so sweet. Thor is a really lucky guy to have you."

He hoped his answering smile looked sincere. "Go on. Tony is looking lost without you."

She gave his arm a thank-you squeeze and pointed the way towards his table before making her way to the front.

"Hey, you must be Loki," said one of the women as he approached.

"Pepper said he's off limits, Sheila," another said. "Hi, I'm Yolanda. The drunk flirt here is Sheila, and that's Erin, Tricia, Ruth, Sadie, and Aisha," she told him, pointing at them in turn.

"Nice to meet you," he said as he sat down.

"We all went to college with Pepper," Aisha explained. "Are you one of her friends from here?"

"I just met her recently. I'm with a member of the party. She said I was put here to save me from family."

Ruth snorted. "Amen to that. We were freshman year roommates and I still remember waking up to find her mom redecorating our dorm room. Imagine Pepper times a thousand and you've got her mother."

"She does seem... high-powered."

"Class president, student body president, language tutor, and she still found time to deep condition her hair once a week. It was disgusting," Erin nodded.

"So which member of the party are you with?" Sheila asked him.

"The best man."

"The hottie? Damn. There goes that plan."

"Sorry."

 

Loki was curious to discover whether Thor would want to be among the first to leave, or the last. Leaving was all Loki really cared about, but first there was the painfully slow process of toasting and then bringing out the cake and a big deal being made of everyone watching it get cut, and then... the dancing.

"You better go get your man for the dancing before Sheila decides to take a stab at it," Erin told him.

"I'd like to see her try," he answered. He would, really; it might cheer Thor up some to be flirted with, and make him less crabby on the ride back to the house. Not that Erin took it that way.

She met his words with a laugh that could have been a double for Pepper's. "That would ensure some good stories for their memory album. But really, they're getting people together for the first dance."

"Then I guess I better. It's been nice sitting with you."

"You too."

Thor put a good face on things, Loki had to give him that much. He'd been odd over cocktails but now he smiled and laughed and flirted right up until the bouquet toss and the soap-smeared car arriving to carry the newlyweds to the fanciest hotel in town.

They cheered and waved with the rest of the crowd until the red glow of the taillights faded into nothing.

"You ready?" Thor asked. The collapse of his smile as he turned to Loki was like a balloon hit with liquid nitrogen.

Loki shrugged. "Whatever."

Thor went over to the valet stand and not two minutes later their limo was pulling up. They rode in silence through the silent streets, slouched, arms crossed and bodies pivoted towards their windows.

"I have some interviews lined up," Loki told Thor's back as they entered his house. One last stab at being nice before giving up completely. "California, but they'll do. I just thought you'd like to know."

"Yes, that'll fix everything," Thor muttered.

Even after everything else, the words still had the force of a slap. Loki clenched his jaw, breathing hard through his nose before daring to let himself speak. "Would you care to enlighten me as to what is going on?"

"You know as much as I do. Or more."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Thor shrugged. "Maybe nothing. It's just that the timing of everything was so convenient."

"The-" Understanding hit like hail and he froze. "You think I planned this?"

 

"What would you suggest I think? A guy sits next to me and starts flirting, we wake up married and the day after I get home he suddenly needs a giant favor?"

"How dare you," Loki whispered. "How _dare_ you."

"How do _I_ dare? Oh, that's rich."

"Shut up. Just shut up. I can't listen to this."

Thor stayed hovering in the doorway as Loki went to the guest room and shoved his things into his bag. Driving home in a suit wasn't his top choice but there was no way in heck he was staying long enough to change. When he stormed back out to the living room he had Thor's check in his hand. "Here. Excuse me."

Thor looked down at it, blinking rapidly as though his eyes didn't want to focus.

"It's the check for next month's withholding. Like I said. Thanks _so much_ for the help. Do you have any idea what it took for me to have to ask that? Don't you think I'd give anything to not have to have done it? And the only way I managed to ask at all was because - like a complete _idiot_  - I actually thought you were nice," Loki hissed, stabbing his finger into Thor's chest as he spoke. "I'll get a lawyer on Monday and get the divorce started. As long as we both agree it should be finished before they take anything else from your pay. If not I'll arrange a bank transfer to minimize your inconvenience." By the last few words he was spitting with fury.

Thor still hadn't moved so Loki shoved past him into the chilly night.

He tossed his bag into the backseat and gave the door a good pointed slam.

"Wait, Loki. Please," Thor called.

It wasn't until Loki looked at him, a dark silhouette in the open doorway, and saw how the image wavered that he realized that his eyes were welling up with tears of anger. "No," he said.


	22. Chapter 22

It was the look in Loki's eyes when he gave Thor the check that told him. Loki spit razor blade words but they weren't what really did it. The hurt in his eyes was what said he hadn't known and Thor knew that look exactly because it was how he had felt when he thought Loki had taken advantage of him. His brain was reeling and his eyes were blurry and his stomach was churning ominously and by the time he remembered how to make his tongue work, Loki was already at his car.

"Loki, wait," Thor begged.

Loki looked at him, eyes glittering in the dim light. "No," Loki said.

His legs felt ominously shaky but he made it down the front step onto the walk without falling. "At least get a cab to a hotel for the night. I'll pay for it. Please."

"I just drank water. I'm fine."

"It's late."

"And getting later the longer we stand here. Goodbye, Thor."

Loki got in and the slam of his door had an air of finality.

Thor stood in the street and watched him drive away before getting out his phone. _Please let me know when you get home, okay?_ The last thing Loki would want when he got home was to be sending Thor a six am text but he had to know. The savage ache in his chest from thinking Loki had abused his trust was nothing compared to how he felt now that he knew he hadn't.

Loki hit every pothole on Thor's street and watching the bounce of taillights was making him dizzy. Water. He needed something to drink. He remembered to lock his door before making his wobbly way to the kitchen where he stood at the sink and drained glass after glass and then wandering back to the living room.

Going to bed felt too much like an ending to the day, and he couldn't have that until he knew Loki got home okay. Instead he - fell asleep? passed out? it was impossible to say - on his couch, his phone resting on his chest with the ringer turned all the way up.

He woke up feeling like complete shit, both physically and metaphorically. Guilt and nausea egged each other on. He dragged himself to the bathroom and was sick in the sink because it was three steps closer than the toilet and he couldn’t hold it back one second longer. A water rinse did nothing and listerine little more but it was enough to get him back to the living room and dig through the cushions for where his phone had fallen between them.

Nothing. He hadn’t slept through a text notification, because there was no text. His fingers felt bloated and awkward on the tiny pad. _You have every right to hate me but please just let me know you got home safely_

Still no reply. He should have tried harder, he shouldn’t have let Loki leave, Loki might have been sober but it had been a long day and he had to be tired and wasn’t there something in the news recently about how tired driving was almost as dangerous as drunk? He pictured Loki driving, music high and eyelids low, blinking, blinking longer, yawning…

His phone jerked him back. _Like you care_

That was bad. That was really bad, but if he was texting that had to mean he was okay and that was a start.

_Can we talk? Please?_

_I’m blocking you now_

Thor took one look at that and hung-over reflexes and all, he’d never hit _dial_ so fast in his life, but it was too late. He hadn't heard a busy tone in years.

He could try emailing, but he didn't know if the email on Loki's card was still active, and even if it was he'd probably blocked Thor's email address as well. Maybe a letter. People never got real mail anymore, maybe he'd be intrigued enough to read it. He'd have to start with an apology, a proper one, not holding anything back. Then he could try to explain...

He fell back asleep with regret acidic upon his tongue.

 

Breakfast was at almost three, a freezer-burned bacon and egg burrito he found underneath a bag of sweet corn. The hot sauce did nothing to hide the off flavor of the tortilla but it cleared his head enough that the noise of the shower was less unbearable. Advil helped a little more, but it was still evening before he felt lucid enough to make any sort of a respectable start on an apology.

He wrote on printer paper because it was either that or a sheet torn from a lab notebook and the blank page looked a little more like stationery.

_Dear Loki,_

_Thank you for being willing to read this. I want to tell you how sorry I am for assuming things, it was wrong of me and I'm sorry._

He'd used _sorry_ twice in one sentence. Was that dumb? He really wasn't good at this sort of thing. He liked to think that he was better with actions, but... well, usually he was.

New sheet.

_Dear Loki,_

_Thank you for being willing to read this. I want to tell you how sorry I am for assuming things, it was wrong of me and I feel terrible._

Was that better, or was that making it all about him? After all, the whole problem so far was him focusing too much on his own feelings.

Back to the first one.

_I need to tell you something that I haven't told anybody, not even Tony. My last relationship was with someone who was so perfect at first. He was handsome and charming and witty and I fell for him so fast I almost got whiplash. It wasn't until-_

Was this turning into an excuse? He didn't mean it that way, but how Loki would take it was something else. He just wanted a chance to explain.

New sheet.

_Dear Loki,_

_Thank you for being willing to read this. I want to tell you how sorry I am for assuming things, it was wrong of me and I'm sorry. I need to tell you something that I haven't told anybody, not even Tony. I'm telling you this not because I'm trying to excuse myself, because I'm not. But I do want to explain._

_My last relationship was with someone who was perfect at first. He was handsome and charming and witty and I fell for him so fast I almost got whiplash. We had a perfect year before things started to happen. He started getting all hot and cold and I should have left then but when things were good they were so good and I wasn't ready to let go of that. At first I didn't say anything, because – well, Midwestern, you know? - but he'd notice I was upset and convince me to talk about it and then when I did try to open up, he'd_

Thor's hand was shaking and when he put down his pen he realized his skin was covered in clammy sweat and his heart was pounding. Four years later and he still couldn't think about it without making himself ill.

Yet another sheet.

_Dear Loki,_

_Thank you for being willing to read this. I want to tell you how sorry I am for assuming things. It was wrong of me and I'm sorry. I need to tell you something that I haven't told anybody, not even Tony. I'm telling you this not because I'm trying to excuse myself, because I'm not. But I do want to explain._

_My last relationship, my only long and serious one, was with a narcissist who had me head over heels before I knew what had happened. He was handsome and witty and charming until he wasn't and by the time I got away from him he'd had almost five years living with me rent-free and as I'm sure you can tell that's the least of the things he took._

_I was wrong to treat you as though you might be like that too. I don't want to be like that and now it's been long enough I can't remember how to be anything else. It's not even conscious anymore. I know I can't hope for your friendship but I hope you'll at least talk to me enough to work the legal things out when the time comes._

He still felt queasy but that would have to be enough. More was out of the question so that had to be enough. Now to sign it. Not _love,_ obviously. _Best_ and _regards_ were way too formal after something like that and everything else he could think of was too affectionate. Finally he just signed it _Thor_. An envelope, a stamp, Loki's address from the top of their text conversation, and he took it to the mailbox two blocks down. The evening air was cool and pleasant and he thought maybe the nice weather was a sign that Loki would take it well. As well as could be hoped.

 

And maybe he would have, if he'd read it. Instead, five days later, it was in Thor's mailbox, _return to sender_ scrawled across the top in Loki's writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't be too hard on Thor, if his letters aren't convincing enough. What he didn't state, and probably hasn't consciously thought through, is that narcissists are emotional abusers who can leave their victims with PTSD. Having supported a friend through the fallout of a friendship with a narcissist and seen the amount of damage they caused, I'm somewhat sensitive to the topic. Thank you.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki deserves a little escape, so heads up for more NSFW art! Block your monitor, cover your pets' eyes. Thank you once again to stmonkeys and (I believe, please correct me if I'm wrong) justanothertart on tumblr for the inspiration for the drawing!

Loki's text notification chirped not five minutes after he pulled away. He was just getting onto the freeway and ignored it. He was going to have to stop for coffee when he found something all-night. He'd look at it then. He really hoped there was a truck stop soon because he was _tired_. Tired of being awake and tired of Thor's shit and tired of having to deal with a stupid illness that even though it was in remission it was still there, always there, an omnipresent invisible and so fucking unfair burden.

There was a Denny's on the far side of St. Cloud. He would really have preferred something to drink in the car but caffeine was caffeine and so it would have to do. He ignored the familiar weight of his phone in his pocket until he'd been served and gotten his coffee fixed just the right shade of ice cream. It tasted execrable. How fitting for seeing what Thor had to say.

_Please let me know when you get home, okay?_

He rolled his eyes and deleted it.

It was just after six – nearly twenty-three hours since he'd gotten up – when he pulled into the lot behind his building, the caffeine painting over the worst of his exhaustion rather than actually making him alert, but it was enough to keep him driving safely. He kicked off his shoes by the door and left a trail of clothes to the bedroom.

His stomach woke him around noon and, still exhausted, he pulled on a pair of lounge pants to wander out to the kitchen. He made himself a sandwich and after eating set about picking up from that morning. His phone fell from his suit pants as he folded them over their hanger. When he picked it up he was more surprised to find that it still had power than he was to find another text waiting.

_You have every right to hate me but please just let me know you got home safely_

It got a snort. _Like you care_

_Can we talk? Please?_

Like that was going to happen after last night. Loki had been an idiot to even ask about the insurance. Everything had been fine until then and they could have just kept it fine until they got a divorce. Even if the legalities took a while they could have remained amiable strangers. He should have just gone to the bank and gotten a loan. His car was nice, that would have been enough collateral for a few months worth of meds.

_I’m blocking you now_ Loki told him. The second he hit _send_ he was going into his contacts, hitting _block_ just as his phone started to ring. It cut off immediately and Loki put it on its charger and walked away. 

 

Television did nothing, not even the new Netflix show that no one would shut up about. A run – long and far too grueling for someone who was still behind on sleep – did nothing. His shower felt good, though, cool streams of water coursing down his skin like a lover's touch in better days. Maybe that would help. Not that he had anyone to call right now; his last FWB had paired off back in March and become a Fw/oB and while Loki was happy for him, he also didn't feel like going to the Cities for a pickup and he preferred those things not too close to home until he was assured of the other person's discretion. Cannon Falls was just too small to risk it.

A bath sounded nice, though. Hot and caressing, perhaps a few bubbles bursting against his skin. Some edging to make it last, to occupy his mind. Yes, that would be nice.

It was a small disappointment to find he was out of bubble bath, but plain water would be good enough. He ran it as hot as he could stand, sitting on the side of the tub with one foot in it to gauge the temperature as it crept up his ankle and swirled around his calf. He gave his cock a few strokes as he waited, waking it up for what was to follow.

His hand felt nice, all warm and wet, sliding down the shaft. He dipped his fingers back into the water and let it drip across the sensitive head. It was already stirring and lengthening, seeking more gentle attention. He leaned forwards to turn off the water and climbed into the tub.

Quiet sounds escaped him as he teased himself, soft _mmm_ s and pleading _aah?_ s and it began to leak, the clear fluid making a gleaming slick down the side of his cock. His hips were moving in time with his fist as images – personal memories, favorite movie scenes, lust-fueled imagination – all danced together in his mind and urged him on. He was so close, pumping and gasping, _hah, hah, hah_ and just when it was almost too late he took away his hand.

He teased his nipples while waiting for the tension humming through his body to ebb. The water was on his side here, as well, the heat soaking into his muscles and lulling them into relaxation and his heart rate following. Once he was out of danger he started again.

He edged himself again and again, each time pushing a little nearer to the limit before backing off. It wasn't until he noticed a lap of water across his stomach that was growing too cool that he decided to be done. He shifted into the position he'd found best for climaxing without drenching onto the floor and this time when it hit, he let go.

If only he could stay gone a little longer.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over a thousand comments, oh my stars and whiskers! Thank you!

Thor wasn't on facebook. He never felt that particular urge that made people and so he simply hadn't, and so when Tony said no one else from work was invited to the wedding, Thor didn't give a moment's thought to the photographs that would be appearing online in the days immediately following. He didn't think about them at all until people began appearing at his office door, commenting on his hot date. Then the _Society_ section of the local news website began running the pics and (shudder) 'dishing' about Tony and Pepper, lots of splashy headlines about _Playboy Philanthropist Prof Gets Hitched!_. The comments sections were immediately flooded with people who were more interested in the two men dancing in the background, weighing in with far more speculation than Thor had ever dreamed would occur about his personal life. And then they were on the Wednesday evening local news with Thor's name on the top of the screen and the stiff-haired broadcasters agreeing that whatever people in the Cities might think, St. Cloud really was a progressive community.

He wouldn't even really have minded the attention if it didn't do such a good job of rubbing salt into the (admittedly self-inflicted) wound. And it was everywhere. The guy at the coffee shop who Thor's been casually flirting with for the past year and a half suddenly downgraded his smile from playful to friendly. The sort of smile that said _don't worry, I know you're off the market and I won't make this uncomfortable_. The students with rainbow patches sewn on their backpacks looked at him with new appreciation, as though he'd just come out even though he hadn't been _in_ in ages, he just didn't talk about personal matters at work and so they'd assumed.

Worst of all were the people who meant to be supportive and encouraging.

"I saw those photos of you dancing with your date," said Kristen when he ran into her at the photocopy machine. "You make a gorgeous couple."

"Thanks," he said.

Kirsten forwarded him an article she had just come across that looked like it would be useful for his research. "You and your mystery man look great together, by the way," she'd added in the comments box right there on the journal's website, because it wasn't enough that his whole city knew, not when the knowledge could also be shared with everyone who worked at Elsevier.

"So you finally found a guy hot enough to match you," Kersten told him as he waited for her to gather her papers from the podium between classes.

Krysten ("my parents were hippies," she'd said to explain the _y_ ) actually bought him chocolates. "It's great to see you with someone again. Gosh, it's been-"

"Thank you for the chocolate," he interrupted.

That was Thursday, and it would have horrible enough even if he hadn't gotten home to find the returned letter. And, of course, there was Tony, bright and early Friday morning. "I saw you and your boy are trying to steal my thunder," he said, leaning against Thor's door jamb.

"You can have it back anytime. Maybe you can skydive into graduation rather than joining the processional with the rest of us."

"Nah, I don't mind sharing the spotlight for a while. That's the kind of friend I am."

"Your generosity knows no bounds."

"It really doesn't. So, you going to go visit him this weekend? Your turn to do the driving and all. Though I guess with him having all that free time it's probably easier for him to do it."

Thor had briefly considered sending a postcard, something where Loki wouldn't be able to help reading at least a few words before throwing it in the garbage. It was so _public_ , though. There was something about the thought of all those postal workers reading his apology that made it seem paltry, somehow. 

He had to go. If Loki wouldn't even read his letter, he had to go apologize. It was going to be horrible but if doing the right thing were always easy the world would be a better place. He'd suck it up and go try to make Loki see how sorry he was. He'd have almost a week to cool down when Thor showed up, that had to help. And if Loki wouldn't talk to him after that, well... at least he'd know that he'd done his best.

Tony was still standing there, waiting for an answer. "Yeah. I'm driving down tomorrow morning," he said.

"That's good. Last weekend was so hectic, it'll be good for you two to get some time to just talk." Tony had kept that same jovial smile on his face but now he met Thor's eyes and he wasn't joking at all.

Thor nodded. "It'll be good."

 

He reserved a room at a hotel in downtown Cannon Falls, a chain place near the freeway to leave the nicer places for the last-minute tourists. He wasn't going there for the town, it didn't matter. He didn't even know if he'd end up using it but if Loki was willing to talk to him then he wanted to be there as long as he could.

He put off packing until far too late that night after another punishing visit to the gym. It left his muscles screaming as he dug through the detritus at the bottom of his closet to find his overnight bag, the one he used for travel when there was nothing in need of a hanger. He took more than he really needed for one day but he meant to be prepared for anything and that meant taking an extra outfit in case Loki threw a drink on him.

He took the bag out to the living room and tossed in the galley he was peer-reviewing in case he was able to make himself focus, as well as his laptop with a few movies on the hard drive in case he couldn't.

It was hard to put the returned letter in his bag. It was even worse to get the crumpled-up, rejected ones from the trash can and smooth them out, looking for the one about Andrew. It got added, too.

Saturday morning he got up early, not hitting snooze even though he'd intentionally set the alarm early enough that he could have. He started the coffeemaker and got in the shower and it wasn't until he was rinsing out his shampoo that it really sank in what he was about to do. Drive two hours to show up on the doorstep of someone who – rightfully - hated him without even knowing if he was home.

He let the conditioner sit a lot longer than it needed to.


	25. Chapter 25

Monday he had two phone interviews. It was good to get up for something that he... well, didn't look forward to, since he really didn't want to move to San Jose, but they were at least something that he didn't dread. And the salary that came with the job he was interviewing for first was worth a few years of bros and earthquakes while he paid off his loans and then he'd really be free.

At least that was what he thought until he had the actual phone call, which was more about Burning Man than anything else, and how "you'd have to go this year if we hire you, because I just don't think anyone can _get_ our culture here if they haven't been a Burner," and by the end of the call it was lucky he was on a cell because if he were talking on a landline he would have ripped it out of the wall.

The afternoon interview, though it came with the promise of less money, was with people he felt less inclined to murder. In a pinch, it would do. And boy, was he ever in a pinch.

Winter had turned into summer with barely a week of spring and Jane was cooking out that night. Loki was assigned salad and it was nice to have something brainless to do. Just boil the water, open a box of green gelatin and stir it in, add the pineapple and cottage cheese. His mom always put in walnuts but he thought they ruined the texture and so left them out.

"Hey, Loki. It's been awhile," Jane said when she opened her door. "Come on in, you're the first one here. Want a Grain Belt?"

"Thanks."

It was nice to sit on her back porch and have a beer and listen to the birds. To imagine what it was like to have a life that simple. The charcoal was already lit and settling down to the perfect smolder and every so often when the wind turned he'd get a gust of smoke.

The tinny doorbell sounded behind them and Jane went to answer it. She came back followed by Darcy and Ian, each carrying a bottle that was already starting to sweat.

"So who's had any luck?" Darcy asked, falling dramatically into a rickety chair.

"I had two phone interviews today. I think I wouldn't kill the people at one of them. Two more later this week."

"Not bad," said Jane. "Where are they?"

Loki made a face. "Palo Alto and Menlo Park."

"Facebookland?" asked Ian, who looked immensely pleased with himself when Loki nodded.

"I guess a job is a job," Jane sighed.

 

On Tuesday morning Loki got an email from the place he'd talked to Monday afternoon, asking him to go for an in-person interview. He got another request that afternoon, and by Thursday morning the only company that hadn't asked to meet him was the one that he would have been forced to kill. He had to admit it was kind of fun, playing them off each other for perks of his trip. It worked out that he'd fly out – business class, he hadn't been able to get first class out of any of them, but business meant enough leg room that he had no complaints – on Monday and go to his a resort/hotel, have two interviews on Tuesday and a third on Wednesday morning, early enough that he could go see the Winchester Mystery House like he'd wanted to ever since he read about it as a kid, and fly home the following day.

"You have to send us postcards from the crazy house," Darcy said when he told her about it. She had appeared on his doorstep on Saturday not long before noon. "I'm out of tea," she explained.

"You live two blocks from Cub. I'm on the other side of town."

She smiled and waited.

"Fine, come on in," he told her. "I'll go get dressed."

"See, that's what I'm here for. My friend is spending his days sitting around in his bathrobe, it's my duty to do something."

"And to drink his tea instead of buying your own. Go ahead and put the kettle on, would you?"

"Consider it done."

He could hear her banging around in his kitchen, looking through his tea stash and his mug collection. "Oolong for me," he yelled.

"Okay."

There were two steaming mugs on the table when he got to the living room and Darcy was reading on her phone.

"I have three interviews next week," Loki told her, sliding into the empty chair.

"All of them out there?" she asked, looking worried.

"Yeah. I know. But it has to be done. At least it's really pretty."

"I just hate it when friends leave."

"So do I."

They fell into a companionable silence, sipping their tea. Her lipstick was a cheerful smear against the white of her mug. The old building creaked around them, its sturdy frame expanding in the midday heat. Ducks quacked and splashed in the river outside his open window. It was peaceful, just sitting there with his friend, nothing needing doing for a couple of days, nothing he had to think about besides packing...

He ignored the knock on the door.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" Darcy asked.

"I don't feel like moving. You do it."

She chuckled and got up. When she came back she wasn't smiling any more.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to stmonkeys for the drawing! <3
> 
> And since Loki's jello got such a reaction last time it would be remiss of me not to recommend Laura Shapiro's book [Perfection Salad](https://www.amazon.com/Perfection-Salad-Cooking-Century-Library/dp/0375756655?tag=serieats-20).

Usually Thor liked music for long drives but today everything he tried got on his nerves. The hum of tires on fresh-laid pavement and the thrum of the engine should have been hypnotic but they didn't even manage to make it boring. Boring would have been great because if he were bored then it would mean he didn't have this steel hand clenching around his throat. It tightened as he pulled up in front of Loki's building, an old riverside mansion that had been converted into apartments. Were he in a better mood he would have been envious.

The door was answered by a short, pretty woman with red lips. Not what he'd expected. Not even remotely. "Hi," she prompted when he didn't speak.

"Hi. Is Loki here?"

She shrugged. "I'll go ask. Who are you?"

"Thor."

She closed the door, leaving him standing awkwardly in the hall. He shifted his weight to one hip, trying to look casual. The door opened and he looked eagerly up.

"He says fuck off," she said flatly.

"Can you tell him it's really important?"

She gave a long-suffering sigh. "Fine."

This time she returned much faster. "He says fuck off and die, you rotten asshole."

Thor closed his eyes and drew in a long breath through his nose. "Okay, I admit I deserved that. Look, can you... can you just ask him to read this? I promise if he doesn't want to see me after that, I'll go."

She rolled her eyes and snatched the proffered papers from his hand.

This was the longest she'd been gone and when she came back her purse was hanging from her shoulder. "It better be _really_ good. Amazing," she warned him.

"Uh-huh," he managed.

Her elbow jabbed him in the arm as she went out and then there Loki was standing, rigid, at the far end of the hall. Light poured out from the open door beside him and caught the sharp lines of his face.

"Hi. Loki, I am so sorry."

Loki deflated, his shoulders slumping and head sinking as though he was almost too tired to hold it up. "Come on," he said, and went through the doorway. His feet on the pale wooden floor sounded like lead.

Thor followed him and found him sitting at a table with Thor's letter and two mugs on it. They were still half-full, like the girl hadn't been there long before he showed up. He took a deep breath, forcing the air past his tight esophagus, and spoke. "Loki, I am so sorry for thinking the worst of you and for how I treated you. I know your feelings were hurt and I feel guilty and ashamed of how I've acted. I understand if you can't forgive me but I want you to know that I'm going to try to do better."

"You bet my feelings were hurt. I mean, what was I supposed to think, the way you turned on me so fast? At first I thought the people in HR gave you a hard time and I figured it would blow over but it never did."

"I know. And I'm _so_ sorry. I feel terrible. Do you know what the worst part of all of this was for me?"

Loki's eyes went suspiciously narrow. "What?"

"I really liked you. Like you. I had so much fun with you in Vegas."

"If you liked me, you could have asked instead of getting all horrible."

Thor sighed. "I know. You're right. I'm sorry. It's... I don't know how to talk about things. I don't know how to even _begin_ to talk about things. I remember this one time in first grade, my mom bought me a shirt and I told her I didn't like it. She couldn't look at me without crying for four days. I got one C in all of high school and my dad acted like it was the end of the world, and when I tried to suggest that maybe he was overreacting a little he didn't talk to me for almost a month. And then," Thor gestured at the letter on the table, "my one big - well, it made my family look pretty fucking functional. And none of that is your fault and I know it doesn't excuse what I did."

When Loki opened his mouth to speak there were a million different things that could have come out without Thor being surprised by them. What he said was none of them. "What did the shirt look like?"

"Shirt?"

"The one your mom got you. What did it look like?"

"Oh." Thor frowned, trying to remember. "It was blue plaid, and there were two front pockets."

"From Dayton's? Pearly buttons that made everyone pick on you and say it made you look like a girl?"

The memory was a freight train slamming against his skull. "Yeah. I'd forgotten."

Loki gave him a thin smile. "You got off easy. My mom cried for a whole week."

"So... you're saying you understand."

"I guess."

The earth fell off Thor's shoulders and he hadn't even known it was there. "Thank you. Really."

"It doesn't mean you're forgiven. Nowhere near it."

"That's fair. All I ask is the chance to earn it."

Loki nodded. "You know what the worst part of all this was for me?" he asked sadly.

"What?"

"I really liked you, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to let folks down the lack of tasering, but someone had to be an intermediary and that would be an awfully big leap. Even for Darcy.


	27. Chapter 27

"It's Thor," said Darcy when she came back from the door.

Loki stared at her. "You have to be kidding."

"Nope."

"Tell him I said to fuck off, would you?"

"Don't you guys need to talk to figure stuff out?"

"I'll email him when I'm ready," he tried. She raised a doubtful eyebrow at him. "I promise. I'm not ready to talk just yet."

"I know you said he was acting like a dick, but he isn't now. He just looks all scared and sad and muscley."

"Please, Darce."

"Okay," she said.

She was back quickly. "He says it's really important."

"Tell him I said fuck off and die, you rotten asshole."

Her second okay was longer and more doubtful, and when she returned this time she had some paper in her hand. "He said if you read these and still refuse to see him, he'll go."

He snorted. "I don't know what part of 'fuck off and die' is that difficult for him to understand."

"Then do it for me. Or go tell him yourself. He keeps looking more mournful and it's making me feel like _I'm_ the rotten asshole."

"Don't worry. You're not."

She met his eyes. "Whatever peace he wants to make, I think maybe you need it, too," she said gently.

Loki sighed. "Fine."

He opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. He gave himself a minute to digest it before reading the one that had been crumpled, which proved to be an earlier and even more revealing draft. The writing got shakier with each line before breaking off in the middle of a sentence. It had clearly been agonizing to write. That took courage, and it had taken more courage to pluck it from the garbage and bring it for Loki to read. That meant something, that he was willing to put himself through all that as part of his apology. It meant a lot.

"Would you excuse us?" he asked Darcy.

"A minute ago you wanted him to fuck off and die," she pointed out, not without a trace of self-satisfaction.

"I know. Please."

"Okay." She slung her purse over her shoulder and pecked a kiss on the top of his head. His hair stuck to her lipstick and when she straightened a few strands got tugged out of place. He trailed after her into the hall and waited at the end as she opened the door and disappeared into the cheerful sunshine. And there was Thor. Loki held himself stiffly until Thor started talking and then it was like all the awfulness of the past weeks hit him all at once and he nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

"Come on," he said, and went back into the living room without looking to see if Thor was following.

Thor sat down in Darcy's chair. She was right. He did look scared and sad. Good. When he apologized that was good too, none of that passive voice I'm-sorry-if-you-were-hurt bullshit. And Thor... well, he was human. Humans make mistakes. _What matters is how you deal with it and how you learn from it,_ Mrs. Osland always said, and while Loki hadn't paid much attention to her lectures about sin, it was actually pretty good advice for life in general.

Still. "You could have handled it better," Loki pointed out.

"I know. You're right," Thor said simply. Then he told Loki a little about his family but Loki barely heard it after _my mom cried for four days._ Loki knew that story. He could so nearly have told it himself. It was just the number that was different, and Loki couldn't say he hadn't learned the same lesson. He didn't know how to talk about things, either, or they could have resolved this ages ago. If their positions were reversed, would he really have acted any differently? He couldn't say that for sure he would have, but if he were being honest with himself, he also wasn't entirely sure that he wouldn't. And he didn't have Thor's personal history making things that much worse.

Just because he understood, though, didn't make it stop hurting. "You know what the worst part of all this was for me?" he asked sadly.

"What?"

"I really liked you, too."

Thor spoke hesitantly. "Can we try talking? I feel like if we'd just had a casual hookup like we first meant to instead of getting into whole a big mess, we'd be friends right now."

Loki took a breath. "Okay. I guess we can try."

 

Thor had offered to take Loki out to lunch but that was more than Loki was ready to face. "No, thank you. I think I'd like you to go now. I think I need to be alone."

Thor looked disappointed but he didn't argue. "Whatever you want. We'll talk when you're ready."

"I'll unblock you on my phone."

"Thank you."

Loki nodded and Thor left and then Loki found the bottle of vodka that had rolled under his sofa and sat down and drank it.


	28. Chapter 28

"I guess we can try," Loki agreed when Thor asked if they could talk. He sounded uncertain, like he wasn't entirely convinced it was a good idea, but right now Thor would take whatever he could get.

"Is there a good place to get lunch around here?" Thor asked.

Loki nodded. "I like the Overlook Diner. Two blocks north along the river. Good sandwiches and a perfect view of one of the waterfalls if you get the right table."

"That sounds nice. Would you, um, like to go?"

Thor told himself that he wasn't worried that Loki said that he needed to be alone but it didn't work. He couldn't figure out how much was a sensible amount to read into that. It could be anything from him not getting enough sleep and wanting to take a nap to him not being able to stand another second in Thor's company and Thor had no clue how to figure out where on that spectrum lay reality.

It wasn't worth the bother of moving his car two blocks so he walked along the river path to the diner. It was lined with trees, and between the shade and the breeze off the water the midday heat was perfectly balanced. There was a wait at the diner so he gave them his number and went to sit on a bench overlooking the falls to think.

The fact that Loki had said it straight-out had to mean something, didn't it? He was probably simply feeling overwhelmed and didn't mean anything more than what he said. If Thor were supposed to read more into it, wouldn't he have been more oblique? Or maybe that was backwards. Maybe this _was_ the sugarcoating? Everything he'd said was perfectly suited to get Thor to get up and leave his apartment with a minimum of fuss. Maybe he never wanted to see Thor again and just didn't feel like having a confrontation. He had a vague sense that other people knew how to make sense of this sort of thing but he'd never been good at it and he'd only gotten worse the longer he was with Andrew. This was exactly why Thor stuck to hookups. Nothing to have to understand beyond shared pleasure and an easy goodbye.

It struck him, completely out of the blue, that he was grateful. He'd gotten used to treating his memories the way he treated his old knee injury, as something to be avoided because there was nothing else to be done. He'd never faced them head-on, not really. Not even when he was still in the midst of it. Writing that letter was the first time he hadn't shied away before he'd started. But writing it down, even though he had to quit in the middle when he made himself sick... he'd done it, just a little, but he'd done it. And if he did it once he could do it again, and again. It would be slow and it would be horrible but between the relationship itself and the years since its ending Andrew had ruined ten years of his life. That was enough. He wasn't going to let him have another ten.

His phone beeped and for a brief second he thought perhaps it was Loki.

_Your table at the Overlook Diner is ready and will be held for you for five minutes_

He smiled and went inside to be seated.

He didn't have much of a view of the falls, but Loki had been right about the sandwiches.

 

Thor didn't know, until he got back to his car, where he was going to go. The hotel was nearby and reasonably priced and he didn't really feel like driving for another two hours. Maybe it would be nice to play at being a tourist for the afternoon and head home in the morning. Then again, the rush of elation was starting to fade and panic was threatening to take its place, so when he reached he car he called the hotel to cancel his reservation and told his phone to navigate home. Once he hit the interstate he turned it off and turned on the radio, trying to keep the panic at bay.

The music helped buoy his spirits but even so, by the time he got home he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, pull the covers over his head, and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist, and he likely would have done exactly that if only Tony and Pepper weren't house hunting this weekend. However many things he was unsure of in life, he was totally confident that he didn't want Tony driving down his street and seeing his car parked in the driveway so instead of bed he went to the garage and shoved everything far enough to one side that he could fit his car in there as well. _Then_ he got to go to bed.

 

Sending a text on Saturday seemed like maybe it was pushy. Too soon after Loki wanted to be alone, whatever that meant. Sunday was better. Sunday afternoon, so it might seem like he'd slept in and had a lazy morning rather than waking up at six with his innards all knotted up.

One-seventeen seemed like a good random time.

 _Thank you for unblocking me,_ he wrote. Now he just had to hope that Loki really had.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More awesome art from stmonkeys! NSFW, again, and again from a photo by justanothertart.

Loki decided that texting counted as talking. Thor had started it off, a simple _Thank you for unblocking me,_ enough to break the ice without being pushy. Loki waited until he got to his hotel Monday night to write back because it gave him something to talk about besides _them_ and he wasn’t ready for that yet.   

 _You wouldn’t believe how cold it is here, I had to buy a jacket_   

Thor’s reply came swiftly and Loki couldn't help chuckling at it. _Hollywood lied to you_   

 _I blame the Beach Boys, personally_   

 _So many culprits, so little time_   

 _Exactly. I have to go to bed now, I have my first interview in the morning_   

 _Goodnight. You're going to knock their socks off_   

He smiled and put his phone on the charger.  

  

Both of Tuesday's interviews went well. He liked the people at the afternoon one more, but that was mostly because of one guy at the morning interview referring to Minnesota as 'fly-over country' and kept talking about how much Loki must want to escape it, and Loki's dislike just sort of oozed onto the rest of them when they didn't kick him on Loki's behalf. For how much money they were offering, though, he thought maybe he could pretend to like people. _It's just a few years,_ he reminded himself.  

He had dinner with the people from the afternoon interview and he'd planned to call Darcy but it ended up running late and there was a two hour difference. After a few beers ("Local brewery," said Dan, setting a glass in front of Loki. "I thought this was a wine region?" Loki asked. They laughed, but it was friendly, and explained that that was to the north. "We've gotten a company bus to take us up for a tasting tour before, though. I'm pretty sure no one would mind doing it again once you joined us," Ellen said, and that actually sounded like fun) everyone was relaxing and he could see himself enjoying working with them, and maybe that was enough to make up for the fact that it was cold in June and everything that wasn’t being irrigated was brown and dead.  

“Do you get used to not having summer?” he asked when the conversation hit a lull. 

They laughed. “Winter makes up for it. It’s usually in the seventies in January,” Kirk told him. 

“Oh," he said, trying to hide his disappointment. Of course there was no snow, he knew that already. "Are there good storms?"

Ellen nodded. “Sometimes the wind and rain get  _crazy_ and I heard some thunder last year.” 

No seasons. No snow. No storms. No _real_ storms. 

 _It’s not forever,_ he told himself again. _You can do it._  

 

The next morning he had texts from Darcy and Thor. Darcy's was long and excitable, wanting to know every detail. He was smiling as he wrote her back. _Are you free Friday? I might even take you out, I feel like I'm going to have an offer by then_   

Again, Thor's was undemanding. _I hope they went well and that you're not too cold_   

 _One was okay, one was really good_ he answered. After a moment's thought he sent another. _It's kind of surreal to be freezing my ass off while surrounded by palm trees_   

Neither one replied right away, probably either sleeping in (Darcy) or teaching (Thor). As he dressed, Loki found himself trying to imagine what sort of teacher Thor would be. The sort that half his students were half in love with, no doubt, and Thor would skillfully deflect it into passion for the subject. Friendly without being overly personal. A tough but fair grader.  

This interview began on the late side in the morning and they finished up over lunch. He found nothing either objectionable or particularly exciting about it and by the time they saw him off it was ranked a solid two. The GPS led him to the Winchester Mystery House which proved every bit as bizarre as he'd expected, though he found himself feeling an unexpected jolt of compassion for the woman so gnawed by guilt that she would feel driven to create such a bizarre structure. A house under constant construction for decades, stairs that went to nowhere and windows into other rooms, all of it built to placate the spirits of the Native people killed by the rifle that gave her the wealth to build it. When he'd read about it as a child, it had seemed crazy and entertaining; now it struck him as something far more melancholy. Still, she could have used her money to help the people who had survived rather than worrying about the ghosts of those who hadn't, so he didn't feel too guilty in the gift shop when he bought a garish plastic souvenir along with his stack of postcards and a book of stamps. 

His flight home the next day felt painfully long even though with tailwinds it was almost twenty minutes faster than the flight out. At least the drive back to Cannon Falls was good. Even with the freeway funneled down to a single lane for repaving the traffic was not as bad as what he’d left behind, and everywhere around him was a lush and verdant sea dotted here and there with patches of soft blue chicory and cheerful daisies.  

There was another text from Thor waiting for Loki when he woke up Friday morning. He replied and Thor replied to that and he wrote back again and somehow the next thing Loki knew it was nearly an hour later and Thor was apologizing and saying he had to run or he'd be late starting his lecture.  

Loki was smiling when he got in the shower and lingered until there was no more hot water, twisting and stretching beneath its thunderous attentions. He turned it off with a squeak of the tap and climbed out.   

He went to look at his email while he just had a towel slung about his hips so his skin could air-dry properly.   

And there they were. Two offers. He had no choice. He had to take one.   

He had to go.  

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More delightful art by stmonkeys, thank you! This one's totally kid-safe and everything. :)

It wasn't easy to hold himself back with that first message. Now that Loki had said they could try, he felt like sending a solid wall of text and he probably would have if only Loki had agreed to go to lunch with him. But he'd wanted to be alone, meaning he needed time and space to deal with stuff and heavens to betsy, Thor knew better to intrude on that. It didn't seem right to make Loki to make the first overture, though, either. It had to be perfectly phrased, every word precisely chosen. _Thank you for unblocking me,_ he wrote that night, and told himself he wasn't disappointed when he still hadn't heard back when he went to bed on Sunday.

Monday came and seemed like it was about to go when Thor got a reply. _You wouldn’t believe how cold it is here, I had to buy a jacket_

Something light and witty. If Loki was making casual conversation Thor had to be, too. _Hollywood lied to you_

Loki's reply made Thor laugh. _I blame the Beach Boys, personally_

That was true, they were at least as guilty as the movies were. _So many culprits, so little time_

_Exactly. I have to go to sleep now, I have my first interview in the morning_

That was friendly that he'd said something rather than just stopping, wasn't it? Or was it just polite? Thor decided to tell himself it was friendly. _Good night. You're going to knock their socks off_

He put his phone on the charger and went to bed.

He didn't hear anything else for long enough that maybe it wouldn't be pushy to send another little note. This time Loki sent two replies before Thor even had time to answer the first one. That _had_ to be friendly, he decided.

Thor got to work only to find that the department's coffee maker had bitten the dust over the weekend when the grad students in Kersten's lab, nearing a breakthrough in their research, had been running it just as mercilessly as their equipment, rather than sleeping like normal people.

"Took you long enough," Tony said behind him. "I've been waiting half an hour to go to Caribou. You could have told me you were running late."

"I didn't know you were waiting for me," Thor pointed out, turning. They headed down the hall, feet noisy on the worn linoleum, back to the elevator Thor had just gotten off.

"Was there an accident on Division? I always tell you not to take it, it gets a wreck almost every day."

"I like it. The trees are nice. But no, there wasn't a wreck. Loki and I were texting and I lost track of time."

He'd barely been able to make himself leave the house at all. Sure, Loki was still kind of restrained overall and he made a few subtle digs about people assuming things, but that was fair. And even with those he somehow managed to make Thor laugh.

_I guess I better go, I'm really late,_ he finally said.

_For a very important date?_

_No, just work_

_Bah_

Thor could just picture Loki saying it. A lift of those expressive brows, a flare of the aristocratic nose and a delicate curl of the delicate lip. While he was angry he’d been able to steer his mind away from his attraction but now that it proved unfounded his mind kept drifting back to those pictures that were still on his phone, to how the sound of Loki’s easy laughter was like silk against his skin.

Tony's voice intruded on his thoughts. "Ah, young love. You should see the idiotic grin on your face right now. Pepper will be glad to hear. She was worried."

"I'm so pleased we could make her feel better," Thor murmured, and whether Tony didn't hear the dryness in Thor's tone or chose to ignore it, he simply nodded.

"So I talked to my buddy over at Freedomlight this morning. They're about to do a bunch of hiring, and you get one guess what one of those positions is."

The way Tony was grinning there was only one thing it could be. "Spectroscopist."

"Bingo. I asked him to hold off on posting the listing until he's met your boy." Tony went on about the details and the more he talked the more it sounded perfect for Loki. "You think he'd be interested?"

"I'll ask."

"Try to let me know today, will you? Lars wants to interview a-sap. Monday would be the best."

"I'll try."

It was going to have to be asap, it turned out. Thor sat down at his desk and no sooner had he woken his monitor than he got another text. _Two job offers, playing them off each other but should have a contract by the end of next week_

He had to admit it shook him. He'd just begun to make amends - to make friends - and now this. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks for Tony.

He got up and closed his door. They hadn't talk-talked yet. It had all been texting. But this was urgent, he told himself, he ought to call and ensure everything was communicated as smoothly and quickly as it could. That was what a friend would do.

"Hi, Thor."

"Hi. Um, is phone talking okay?"

"Yeah. It's okay."

"I wanted to say congratulations on the job offers. It must be such a huge relief."

"It is," Loki agreed, but he didn't seem very happy.

"You don't sound excited."

There was a quiet sigh. "All my friends are here. And it was a nice place to visit, but…" He trailed off.

"You don't want to go?"

"It doesn't really matter what I want. I don't have a choice."

Thor took a breath. "What if you did?"


	31. Chapter 31

Loki moved the phone to his other ear as though things might make more sense from that one. "What do you mean, 'what if I did'?"

"Tony knows someone who's looking for... well, you, basically, from what he said. Tony got him to agree not to post it until he meets you. If you want."

"And it's here?"

"It's here. Well, Waite Park. But that's a lot shorter move than the coast."

"I don't know what to say."

"Maybe say you want to come at least check it out before you accept one of the other offers?"

"Oh. Um. Yeah." _Nice, Loki. So eloquent._

"They're hoping you can come on Monday? I told Tony I'd let him know after I talked to you."

"Yeah. I can come on Monday."

"My guest room is yours, of course. No sense paying for a hotel. -Unless you'd rather not, which, you know, that's fine too."

"Guest room is good." He wasn't as concerned about spending money now that he had solid offers but that wasn't the same as having a contract and free was free. Plus, even if he did turn up with the job that was basically the answer to the majority of Loki's problems, Loki was still mad at him and staying there would give Thor the chance for some more groveling.

Thor sounded relieved. Good. He knew things weren't okay yet and he wanted the chance to keep working on it. "That's great," he was saying. "I'll have it ready for you. I'll see you Sunday. Unless you'd like to come sooner and get a little more familiar with the area? I could show you around some."

He sounded so hopeful but there was only so much Loki could take at once and a whole weekend was too long. "Sunday's good."

"Okay, sure. Yeah."

"I'll let you know when I'm getting close."

"That's okay. You can just show up. I'll be there."

 

“You’re going to go _stay_ with him?” Darcy squeaked. “What happened to ‘fuck off and die’?”

“Aren't you the one who convinced me to talk to him when I said that?”

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“I appreciate that. I do. But he told me some stuff that changed things, and I think maybe we could be friends. When we were having fun together, it was… It’s worth a second chance.”

“If you say so, but I still think-”

“Darce. I don’t make friends the way you do. Not real ones.”

She softened. “Okay. But you call me if you need me to punch him for you.”

“Deal,” he answered, laughing.

 

Thor looked agreeably nervous when Loki arrived on Sunday, sitting on his front porch and chewing his lip as he peered down the street. He stood and walked to the curb as Loki pulled in. “Hi,” he said Loki got out.

“Hi,” Loki answered.

Then it was the awkward touching thing like in the Vegas airport. Hug? Handshake? They ended up with the side hug again, all back clapping and vaguely uncomfortable laughter as they broke apart.

“Is your bag in the trunk?” Thor asked, peering into the empty back seat.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks.”

Loki followed Thor inside, his bag over Thor’s shoulder, and tried telling himself he wasn’t enjoying the view but it didn’t work. It had been easier to ignore Thor’s bountiful good looks while he was being a jerk. The hurt was fading now, though, soothed by Thor’s sincere apology and the explanation that had clearly been a painful one to make, and he’d been trying so hard afterwards to be friendly and considerate. Even Loki, who was a certified champion at holding grudges, couldn’t help softening in the face of such genuine effort.

“Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea? Beer? I have a few cold.”

“Iced tea would be nice. Thanks.” He trailed after Thor into the kitchen and when Thor opened the fridge Loki spied another bottle in it as well.

Thor was trying. Loki had to try, too. “I don’t get any champagne?” he teased.

“That’s for tomorrow night, after you win your interview. 'Cause you will."

“Oh. I’d thought I’d…”

“ _Oh._ You’re going home. I thought you’d want to stay tomorrow night to avoid rush hour. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. I promised I’d stop doing that.” Thor looked at once so mortified and so miserable that Loki couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him. And really, avoiding rush hour would be nice. He hadn’t brought enough underwear but he could go commando.

“That would be really nice, actually. Thanks.”

They had dinner at an outdoor café a few blocks from Thor’s house and when they finally ambled back they stayed up later than they’d meant.

 

The interview went every bit as well as Tony had promised, via Thor, that it would. He did the usual arrival-introductions-handshaking thing and gave out copies of his CV. He sat, a polite smile plastered to his face, as everyone read it through, going over his areas of specialization and experience.

"You worked for Eric!" Lars boomed.

"I did. Four years. I'd still be there if the investors hadn't pulled out."

Lars gave an approving hum and the rest was a formality. The people were likable, the work was utterly fascinating, and the goal of the company was rewarding. 

"Excuse me for a moment, would you?" asked Lars as they were getting ready to go to lunch.

"Yes, of course," Loki said. _He's calling Eric right now,_ he thought to himself.

He was correct. "So, I spoke with Eric," Lars said as their salads arrived. "He gave me a glowing recommendation. And Tony said you're a newlywed, hoping to move here to join your husband?"

Loki swallowed. "Yes, that's right."

"Don't see enough of that these days, young people making commitments and settling down. Speaks well of their character. Solid, respectable. I met Thor once at one of Tony's gatherings. Not a bad man. A guy could do worse."

"I thought so," Loki managed.

"So no point beating about the bush. I'd like you to come work for me. Here's our package," Lars said, producing a folder from his briefcase.

He opened it. The salary was good, well below his other offers but once the cost of living was taken into account it was competitive and maybe even better. Great stock options, and he'd already seen enough to think they'd pay off handsomely a few years down the road. Good benefits, ample vacation and flextime. He asked for another ten thousand a year but he already knew he was going to take it. Lars offered another five and Loki agreed and that was that.

"Excellent," said Lars, leaning back in his chair. "You're exactly who I needed for this position and it's so gratifying to bring a happy couple together."

"Yes, sir," Loki said faintly.

 

He spent the afternoon getting to know the lab, shadowing his new coworkers and familiarizing himself with what they did. Trying desperately to keep his mind occupied. He actually held it together all the way through his drive back to Thor's house... at which point he collapsed on his steering wheel in helpless laughter.

He must have looked like he was crying, because a minute later his door was being opened and Thor was there asking, his voice laden with worry, "Loki? Are you alright?"

Loki looked up, laughing so hard he could barely talk. "Thor," he gasped, "I have to ask a favor."


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for posting so late in the day and for the brevity of my replies to comments! This week is shaping up to be murder so I think it's either erratic posts and short answers, or nothing at all until next Monday.

"I'll pay you rent," Loki assured him, his eyes wide and pleading." And it'd just be for a few months, and then I can move out and we'll tell everyone we agreed that we're better off as just friends."

"You don't need to pay me. We're in this together," Thor told him. He'd been watching out the front window for Loki to arrive, and when he pulled up and burst into what looked like tears Thor had run straight out in his stocking feet, dreading the worst. To find Loki laughing instead of crying was such a relief that he didn't care one whit that Loki wanted to move in. "Splitting the housework will be fine."

Loki bobbed his head. "That's kind of you, but after... you know, what you wrote in your letter... I'd feel better if I did."

Thor wasn't used to talking about it and he really didn't feel like starting but that was what had made things go so sour in the first place and he was determined not to do that again. "Thanks. That's very thoughtful of you." Okay, so, he didn't actually mention Andrew's name, but it was a start.

Loki pulled himself out of the car and they walked up the front path together, still chuckling. "I haven't had a roommate in years, I should warn you now. I'll do my best not to cramp your style when you... you know. I'll stay out of the way."

Thor stopped dead in his tracks. "I didn't tell you about the photos," he said with dawning horror.

"Photos?"

"From the wedding. The local tv stations all ran a bunch of pictures from the wedding, and people saw us in the background and they got so many comments that... Loki, all three of the local stations ran stories about us."

"As a couple."

"Yeah. Especially with us living together, there's no way anyone around here is going to believe that we're, you know, on the market. Even my barista quit flirting."

"I see." Loki sighed. "We'll, it's just for a few months, yeah? That's livable."

“You don’t mind?”

“It’s not what I’d have chosen, but I guess it’s not that big a deal.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

It was one thing to say that he didn’t mind something, and something else altogether to mind it little enough to tease Thor immediately afterwards, so when he asked, “So what’s for dinner? Or are we just having champagne and calling it a meal?” that was when Thor relaxed.

“I stopped at a Chinese noodle place for carry out on my way home. You can have the fortune cookie if you ask nicely.”

Loki gave an amiable snort and knocked his shoulder into Thor’s.

 

“So you start next Monday?” Thor asked later. Loki had already told him but he’d eaten too many noodles and was now in an agreeable brain fog as they slouched together on his couch.

“Yup. Bright and early. I have so much packing to do,” Loki said, shaking his head.

“I’ll have a key cut for you when you get back.”

“Thank you.”

Thor nodded. “I haven’t had a roommate in a while either. I think it’ll be fun.”

“So do I.” Loki sank deeper into the cushions and his shirt rode up. If only it had gone another half inch there would have been a flash of skin.

Thor realized he was staring and looked away. “I talked to someone in the law school here. They said we’re going to have to go back to Nevada and find a lawyer to sue the state to let us divorce. When it’s time.”

Loki shrugged. “That’s okay. The flights are cheap, and I had a good time there.”

“Me too. Hey, we should ride the gondolas when we go. I wanted to before and didn’t get a chance.”

“Gondolas?” Loki said, grinning.

“There’s a fake Venice in one of the casinos. And if we do that, you have to pick something fun too.”

“I vote we ride the roller coaster and scream like idiots.”

“You’re on,” Thor said, matching his open smile. “You want more champagne?”

“I do, but it’s empty.” He sounded mournful.

“How tacky do you mind being?”

“Huh?”

“Warm champagne poured over frozen strawberries is actually pretty okay.”

“Sure, why not?”

“I’ll be right back.”

Thor had digested enough to no longer feel like a contented sloth and walked into the kitchen with his usual even gait. He dug through the freezer until he found what he wanted – a little freezer burned, but probably not enough to taste over the flavor of the champagne – and grabbed the bottle off his wine rack as he went back to the living room. Loki had slid even farther down, his endless legs seeming to stretch almost to the far wall. He held out his glass and Thor dropped in some berries.

Loki's voice was light over the dull sound. "So this is life with you, huh?"

"I guess so."

"Not bad." Loki stretched and arched his back and his stupid shirt still didn't rise up. Thor took a long breath and poured the champagne.

 

The first bottle had been enough to warm Thor's skin; they were halfway through the second before he felt it sinking into his muscles, melting away the worst of the strain that lingered there. Loki's cheeks were tinged with pink and Thor remembered from his photos exactly how far down that flush went, and where else that long and pale body was not so white.

He was about to apologize for his silent staring when it hit him that Loki was doing the same. All that remained was for someone to say what it seemed they were both thinking. "So, as long as we're living together and everyone thinks we're unavailable... what do you think?"

"What do I think about what?" From the smile dancing at the corners of his lips, he already knew perfectly well and found it amusing to make Thor say it. If he wasn't over how Thor had acted, well, there were worse ways of taking revenge.

“I mean, you’re hot, and you seem to think I’m at least okay, and it’s not like anyone in town is going to consider either of us after all the publicity, so…” He trailed off.

“You mean friends with benefits?” Loki shrugged. “Why not?”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double art, hooray! Thank you, stmonkeys. :) The second drawing might be a little NSFW depending on your job... there's nipples.

 

Thor was a great kisser. That was the first thing Loki thought once they broke apart and he remembered how to think at all. His kisses were warm and sensitive, with melting-soft skin and firm, insistent pressure. His tongue teased and promised before slipping away, making Loki give chase. They were the sort of kisses that sent all his blood rushing south and left him faintly dizzy. He wondered faintly if they had kissed that night in Vegas, if these had been what made him ask or agree to be wed. Thor's hand was still curled around the back of his neck and Thor was looking back at him with the same vague startlement on his face that Loki knew must be on his own.

"You're a great kisser," Thor told him. His deep voice was even lower now and his breath smelled like champagne.

"So are you." Loki's voice matched Thor's for roughness and he barely had the words out before they were kissing again, pulling each other awkwardly to their feet and stumbling their way towards the hall. They left a trail of clothes behind them, kicked-off shoes and hastily tugged-off socks and then, a little farther down the hall, shirts that couldn't have been unbuttoned any faster without tearing the buttons off. Their pants landed in a single pile in Thor's doorway and their underwear just inside so that their hands were finally free to explore everything just as they collapsed onto the bed. The window was open and the evening breeze danced across their skin and its coolness made their warm hands seem to burn.

They would have time for slowness and patient exploration later. For now it was all far-too-long-delayed need and greedy touches. Thor rolled to his side to reach into the open drawer of his nightstand and grab a bottle of lube. He drizzled it over their cocks, both of them ignoring the shock of cold because it was followed by burning hands wrapping around each other's shafts and beginning to move.

Even the haste was good, Loki decided, hips and fists moving in time and Thor wiggling nearer to claim his lips once again. It was a thrill to have Thor making those desperate pleading noises, like he was helpless to do anything but beg. He would look good on his knees, Loki thought. A little begging for forgiveness might be in order later. For now it was impossible to want anything but _more_ and Thor gave and gave. Of course, Loki did as well.

Thor's cock was nice and thick, Loki's fingertips just touching where they wrapped around, and from the way Thor was reacting, it was particularly sensitive. Loki was a man who appreciated a nice cock and the one he was holding right now definitely fit the bill. All those exquisitely sensitive bits just beneath the head-

"Ah, Loki... Jesus, do that again. That's... mmm, yes."

"Yeah? You like that?"

Thor answered with a ragged laugh that went straight to Loki's cock and then he did – fuck, he did _something_ that left Loki momentarily forgetting how to breathe.

"Thor," Loki gasped.

Thor did it again just as he brought his mouth to Loki's, demanding now, and his cock was throbbing in Loki's grasp and he was doing unreal things to Loki's and all the sensations started getting jumbled together and they were kissing even more desperately as they came, hot and thick against their skin. They kissed all through it, drinking each other's moans of pleasure, still kissing as the shuddering waves softened and fell still. It had been so long since he'd had a partner who liked kissing as much as Thor seemed to. It certainly boded well for the next few months.

"That was fun," Loki said, finally settling onto his back.

Thor remained on his side, smiling at Loki. "Mmm. I can still see the stars when I close my eyes."

"My skin feels all buzzy."

"Mine too."

Loki smiled. "Is there any of that champagne left?"

"A little. I'll be right back."

Thor got up and – to Loki's regret – pulled on a robe, but when he came back with the sweating bottle and empty glasses he set them down on his dresser and cast the robe aside before pouring.

"Not much left," he said, handing Loki a half-glass.

"Enough to toast to an agreeable arrangement."

"That's what matters."

Thor held his glass up and Loki clinked his against it. The champagne had started to go flat but it was still cold and crisp with faint hints of peach and elderflower and in his current state that was more than enough. Thor drained his glass as he circled the foot of the bed and climbed back in beside Loki. Loki finished his and lay back down before rolling to his side.

"This doesn't mean I'm not still mad," Loki warned him. Best get that out of the way first and foremost. Still mad.

He looked downcast but answered, "I know. You'd said it would take awhile. Is this okay anyway?" he asked, draping his arm across Loki's waist, warm and heavy and _firm._

" _Mmm._ I mean, yeah. I suppose we ought to talk about what else we like. For later. What do you like?"

"I prefer to top, but I'm versatile. You?"

"Same," Loki told him, making a rueful face.

"That's okay," Thor shrugged. "I enjoy bottoming too, and if you fuck half as well as you do this... well, a guy would have to be crazy not to like it."

Loki couldn't resist the opportunity for a little revenge, not when Thor had presented to him on a silver platter. He gave Thor the slow, knowing smile that was good for turning men's knees into water. "Oh, Thor, I fuck _much_ better than this."


	34. Chapter 34

Thor's alarm went off way too early.

"That doesn't bode well for a lazy breakfast in bed," Loki said from somewhere beneath the blankets.

Thor shuffled them around until he found Loki's face, blinking against the cool morning light. "Sorry. I have to give a final this morning," he answered.

"It's okay. I should get moving anyway." He got up and stumbled sleepily to the door, where he bent over to pick up the last of his abandoned clothes and (Thor suspected it was inadvertent, with how he was still waking up, which was even better) gave Thor the most perfect view of his ass. It was an enchanting heart shape from this angle, creamy and delectable and by the time Loki was wandering off to the guest – no, _his_ \- room, Thor was checking the clock to see if they had time.

They didn't. Any other day he might have considered it but he couldn't risk it before an exam, not if he was going to eat breakfast, and he really needed to eat breakfast. He got up and since Loki's door was open he figured it was okay to pop his head in. "I'm going to start cooking if you want the bathroom first."

Loki looked up from where he was sitting on the side of the bed, apparently busy just blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "Sure. Thank you."

When Loki appeared in the kitchen his skin was damp and glowing, his eyes were open and bright, and he was sniffing the air appreciatively.

"Sausage and pancakes," Thor said.

"Smells good."

"Thanks." Thor plated their food and handed one to Loki and they sat down at the kitchen table. Loki poured syrup over everything and ate with such gusto Thor found himself staring.

He'd had some concern that their conversation might be awkward after the previous night, and at first it was, but Loki asked what the course was that had their final, Thor told him, and Loki launched into a story about when he'd taken the same thing as an undergrad and by the end of it they were both in stitches and the ice was not only broken but gone.

 

"Thanks again. I really appreciate this," Loki said as they went down Thor's front walk together.

Thor raised his left shoulder. "Don't mention it. We seem to be taking turns helping each other out."

"For better or worse, right? We probably promised that."

"Exactly," Thor chuckled. "Have a safe drive. I'll see you Sunday."

Loki paused only the briefest moment before brushing his lips against Thor's. "Bye. Have a good week."

"You, too."

Loki smiled and turned down the street towards his car. Thor got in his and headed off to work, his head full of plans rather than exams.

There were a few things Thor wanted to do to the house to make it more welcoming. It was one thing for the occasional guest to use Thor's towel rack while he threw his drying towels over the footboard of his bed, but since Loki was going to be there for months Thor felt like he ought to have his own rack. And there wasn't really much cabinet space in the bathroom, either, so if he could find a little thingy with drawers to sit on the counter, that would be polite as well.

The hardware store at the corner of campus cut a copy of his key and they had the towel racks he needed but he didn't see anything that looked good for storage. There were a few boxes with drawers but they were all too industrial looking, so on his way home he stopped at Target. He found something that, once he hunted down some baskets to fit into the cubbies and a can of spray paint to make it all tie into the rest of the room, seemed like it would work. He also threw in a few collapsible storage boxes of different sizes because they were prominently placed in all the store ads and they looked really handy even though he wasn't sure what he'd do with them. The small appliances were on his left as he headed up towards checkout and he turned down the aisle for one irresistible impulse purchase.

It was good he got all those boxes, because there wasn't really space for any more bookshelves in the house so Thor went through his, pulling off the titles he was less likely to read in the coming months, boxing them and shoving them into the dust-bunny mating grounds under his bed, and condensed what remained. That left one empty and it could go in the garage if Loki had one he wanted to use, and if not he could use this one. Loki would like that, being given options instead of Thor making assumptions. It was just a bookshelf but it would show that he was trying.

He was trying not to bother Loki with texts when he had to be insanely busy trying to get everything packed and cleaned and loaded into either a storage unit or a truck by Saturday night, ready to drive to Sauk Rapids bright and early Sunday morning. He did ask about the bed, because that was something that had to be taken care of right away.

_Are you storing your bed or bringing it? I'll take this one apart if you're bringing yours_

_Bringing mine, it's bigger_

_Want me to move this dresser out?_

_I'll use it if that’s okay_

_Of course it is_

_I should be there by eleven on Sunday_

_I'll be here with bells on. And a key for you_

_See you then_

Saturday he installed the towel rack and then realized maybe Loki would want his own hand towel so he went out and got a rack for that but waited so that he could offer before putting holes in the wall. He dragged the mattress off the bedframe and got all the parts out to the garage, standing the mattress up on some trash bags to keep it off the dirty floor. He spray painted the new bathroom drawer set and left it to air out on his front step overnight and once there wasn't anything else to do he realized how nervous he was.

Sunday morning he moved his things from the medicine cabinet into the drawers and made a batch of lemonade. Loki would like that, something fresh and cold after the drive. A nice way of showing that he meant to be nice from now on. The spoon clinked agreeably against the sides of the glass pitcher as he stirred it. He was just filling his insulated tumbler with ice when he heard the rough engine of a truck outside, grinding its way into silence.


	35. Chapter 35

Jane was out of town visiting her family, but Darcy and Ian came over to help him pack. He'd already boxed up everything personal, so when they arrived they were ready to start unloaded basically everything into boxes. They started by moving everything out of one corner of the living room so they could stack boxes there, tidy and out of the way. He'd decided to leave most of his furniture in storage because it was faster and because most of his things were ancient family hand-me-downs that weighed about a ton each, and once he'd gotten his own place in St. Cloud and rebuilt his savings he could pay someone else to do the carrying.

"You're moving in with him?" Darcy demanded the instant he opened the door.

"It's complicated."

"How long ago was it you were telling him to fuck off and die?"

"Two weeks."

"Uh-uh. Nine days. That's barely more than one week."

Loki shrugged. "We talked, and... it was a misunderstanding. That's all."

It was technically the truth, even though it was far from being _all_ , but Ian was going to arrive any second and he didn't want to be standing in the doorway talking about this when he showed up. Loki did genuinely like Ian, but he was young, his spirit somehow magically uncrushed by graduate school, and he tended to see things in absolutes. If he knew, he'd probably want to march on Thor's house with pitchforks rather than help Loki move in with him. Not that Darcy wasn't looking pretty pitchforky herself right now, but she was willing to let things go when Loki asked.

"Okaaaaaaay," she told him. "But I want regular updates about everything. How things are going with, you know, everything."

"Promise."

"Pinky swear."

He smiled and held up his pinky. She caught it with her own and grinned back.

 

How he'd accumulated so much stuff he could never figure out, but by Saturday afternoon it was – miraculously – all ready to load into the moving truck. Jane was back and with all four of them it wasn't too bad, and when it was over they went out for a goodbye dinner.

"It's not that far," he insisted. "Two hours, we can meet in the Cities anytime we want. After work, even."

"Yeah, but it's not the same as just dropping over whenever," Darcy pointed out.

"Yeah. That's true."

He slept on his mattress on the floor and in the morning Ian appeared to help him get it to the truck and attach his car to the hitch. They had breakfast at the Overlook and then it was time to go.

 

Thor was there waiting for him, just like he'd promised. He came down his front walk before Loki even had the keys out of the ignition. "Hi," he said when Loki opened the door. He looked almost... shy? But he also looked welcoming, his smile warm and sincere.

"Hi," Loki said.

"What time do you have to return the truck?"

"Six."

Thor looked at his watch. "Tons of time. Are you hungry? I can make lunch if you want to eat before we start."

"I'm not, but I wouldn't say no to a cold drink. The A/C in this thing leaves something to be desired."

"Do you like lemonade? I just made some. For you. If you like it."

"Sounds heavenly." Loki sighed and stretched, letting the faint breeze cool his damp skin as best it could. Thor watched. Thor liked it. Good.

After insisting that Loki sit down Thor bustled about the kitchen, getting out a glass and dumping in a bunch of ice, filling it from a colorless glass pitcher and even from across the room Loki could smell the crisp tartness. Thor put it in front of him and he took a sip while Thor watched, expectant.

"It's perfect. Not too sweet, like some people make it," Loki said.

Thor's smile broadened. "I thought you'd like it tart. Now, I know you probably won't get to it today, but I rearranged in here so you can have half the cabinets. These four are yours," he said, gesturing to the ones to the left of the sink.

Loki snorted. "Thor, I have two pots and a pan, four plates, one eating bowl, and one mixing bowl."

"Oh. Then you don't mind if I move some stuff back?"

"Not at all," Loki said, laughing.

And that was how it was as Thor took him around the house. "These two empty bookcases are for you, if you want, or I can move them out if you have something else you want to put here instead. We can also rearrange if you want," he said, passing through the living room towards the hall. He was acting nervous, now, like he was afraid Loki was going to reject his efforts when really it was all far more than Loki had expected.

"I do think I'll use the bookshelves. Thanks."

A smile bloomed across Thor's face and he hurried Loki towards the bathroom. "And in here, I put in a towel rack for you but I didn't know if you'd want a rack for your own hand towel too? I have one I can put up if you want, it's no problem. And I moved my stuff into these drawers so you can have the medicine cabinet."

"Sharing a hand towel is fine," Loki said, amused. "I better start getting stuff in."

"I'll help. Just tell me how you'd like me to start."

"Setting up my bed, I think."


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More NSFW art, thanks to stmonkeys! Hello, pretty dick.

Loki opened the back of the truck and Thor blinked. “Is that a whole case of Pepto?” he asked.

“It used to be. I’m running low.”

“You get it by the case?”

Loki chuckled as he climbed in to start shoving the mattress to the edge. “You saw my pharmacy haul. You don’t take that many pills every day without some upset stomachs.”

Once it was pointed out it was obvious enough that Thor felt himself flushing. “Oh. Yeah. Um, is there anything else I should know?”

Loki shrugged. “If I wake up screaming in pain just dunk me in a tub of hot water and in a few hours I’ll be good to go.”

Thor stared. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m not serious,” Loki answered, laughing. “That’s not very likely to happen and if it does, you take me to the ER just like you would anybody else. Just wash your hands when you’re around sick people, mostly. A bunch of my pills are immunosuppressants so I catch things more easily.”

“I can do that. I never noticed you seeming to wash a lot.”

That got a shrug. “I do, but not obsessively. There’s only so much I can let it control me, you know? Otherwise I might as well not even be in remission at all.”

“How do you do that? How do you just decide something won’t get to you?”

Loki’s smile said he understood they weren’t really talking about his RA anymore. “Some days it’s easier than others,” he said gently. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

 

What Thor had called 'tons of time' was more like 'enough time as long as they kept working.' He had felt a twinge of hope, once they finished assembling Loki's bed, that they might... but that was okay, that could wait until they'd eaten a hasty lunch and finished carrying in the boxes. Loki took the truck to the place in town with half an hour to spare and as soon as he left Thor jumped in the shower to wash off the sweat of hours spent working in midsummer heat.

"What would you like to do for dinner?" Thor asked when he got back.

"Delivery? Right now all I want is to stand under a ton of cold water and once I get out of that I really don't want to go back outside, and I can't imagine you feel like cooking any more than I do right now."

Thor chuckled. "I don't think I could feel like cooking any less."

"Just get me some of whatever's good. I'm too tired to care."

"Okay."

Loki was out of the shower before the food arrived, wandering into the kitchen in jeans and a tee-shirt that clung damply to his glowing skin and how Thor's mouth could simultaneously water and go dry he didn't know but that was what it did. Loki seemed to know he looked good, too, from the smile he gave Thor.

Tubs of hummus and baba ghanoush and lebna filled the small table between them leaving just enough room for each of them to have a small plate for their bread. "This is really good," Loki said. "What did you say the place is called?"

"Hummus Heaven. Not the most creative name but I think they're right."

"Mmm," Loki agreed, nodding.

It was also not too heavy. Even after emptying the containers, cleaning up (which Thor insisted upon doing in its entirety) was more than enough time to digest before Loki was walking down the hall, pulling his shirt over his head and casting a look back over his shoulder.

Thor followed.

Loki went to his room and by the time Thor got there Loki was facing the door with a cocky smile and unzipped jeans with nothing beneath them. Thor stood and watched as Loki let them fall. They'd already had the whole safety talk and found out they'd both tested clean just before the Vegas conference and so there was nothing stopping Thor from sinking to his knees and taking it into his mouth.

It wasn't hard yet, but it was getting rapidly thicker as he bobbed his head and felt it twitch against his tongue. Loki's hands came down to cradle his head as he sighed Thor's name.

They had been in such a rush before and Thor was determined that this time they would both indulge themselves. Loki, it seemed, was of the same mind. The rolling of his hips was almost languid, slow enough that it seemed Thor's mouth felt fuller with each thrust. Even once he was completely hard he kept the same lazy pace and Thor moved lazily to match.

A fingertip pressed at the corner of his lips and he stretched them even wider to let it in. He flicked his tongue across it and began to suck in earnest, head bobbing faster, mouth filling with bitter salt. He looked up and met Loki's gaze, holding it until Loki's eyes fluttered shut in bliss.

"Go on. You too," Loki murmured.

It was a matter of seconds to get his zipper down and his cock in one hand while the other was still on Loki, fingers in a ring sliding up and down with his mouth, playing gently with his balls, wrapping possessively around his ass to pull him closer. His body must have reacted to his own touch because whatever he did made Loki give a quiet moan in response.

For all his determination to take things slowly this time, it didn't feel like that long before Thor was getting close, almost as close as Loki was, and he really didn't want to spill on the carpet two days after he'd shampooed it. "Mmm?" he managed, hoping Loki would notice the worry in his tone.

He did. "Here," he said, offering Thor a towel from the stack on his dresser.

"Mmm."

Loki gave a soft laugh. "You're welcome." His hand came down to Thor's shoulder, leaning forward and bracing himself as his legs began to shake.

Thor turned his full attention to Loki as his cries grew louder and broken until he came with a gasp and a tensing of fingers. Thor generally didn't swallow but he did now, vaguely hoping it might count as more points towards being forgiven. Loki's cock was still twitching and dripping with the last few waves of his climax when Thor's took him and for those few happy moments everything was perfect.

Loki shifted his weight back onto his own feet as Thor cleaned himself up. "Shit. It's not even nine," Loki said, looking over Thor's shoulder.

"It's okay if you want to go to sleep. It's been a long day."

"I'm tired, but if I go to bed too early I'll wake up too early and that throws everything off."

"Mmm," Thor agreed, nodding. "What time do you have to get up?"

"Six, to be safe. Once I'm used to traffic here I'll probably be able to sleep a little later."

"TV? The one in the living room has Netflix hooked up."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"You bet."

Thor had hoped that they might cuddle on the couch while they watched but Loki poured himself into the armchair with a sigh. "You should pick. I don't care what we watch."

"Have you seen I Zombie?"

"Huh-uh."

"I think you'll like it."

Thor started it and they watched the first two episodes and he was right, Loki did like it. "It's kind of fluffy, but I feel like it's not going to stay that way," he said when Thor paused it before the third could start.

"No comment," Thor answered with a grin.

Loki grinned back. "I think I'd better turn in. I'll try to be quiet in the morning."

No sleeping together either, then. Not that Thor had any right to hope, but still. He'd hoped. It had been kind of nice to wake up together last week. "Don't worry about it. I can go back to sleep if I wake up."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Thor waited until he heard Loki's bedroom door close before he got up and turned off the lights.

 


	37. Chapter 37

Loki smelled it the second he stepped out of the shower and he felt rotten. He'd done his best to be quiet, turning his alarm as low as he dared and walking on tiptoe down the hall. There wasn't much he could do about plumbing noises but he hadn't noticed anything particularly loud when he turned on the water, and yet the smell of fresh coffee was unmistakable.

He turbanned his hair in an old t-shirt and put on his bathrobe.

"I'm sorry, Thor," he began as he reached the kitchen. "I really tried to be quiet."

Thor turned to face him and for someone who'd been woken up at six am on a day they didn't have to get up at all, he looked remarkably cheerful. "You were. There's no way you'd have woken me. That's why I asked when you were getting up." The coffee maker was spitting its last few drops as he spoke. He filled two mugs and got a box of cream from the fridge. "Sugar's on the table."

"I remember," Loki smiled.

"Yeah. Of course. Do you want me to make breakfast now or wait until you get dressed? I didn't want to start it too soon and have it get cold."

"You're making me breakfast, too? You know I'm going to get used to this really fast, right?"

Thor shrugged. "I just thought..." He bent down to rummage through one of the over-packed cabinets. "I got a waffle iron. There's strawberries and bacon in the fridge. Like our first breakfast. This is sort of our second first time, right? I just thought... you know, fresh start."

It was almost unspeakably charming. Thor was trying so hard, and Loki really was trying too, but he didn't know how to make himself stop feeling hurt just because he wanted to, and as he _was_ still hurt, it would be unkind to let Thor think otherwise. Especially with Thor's past. It wasn't like Loki was an expert on that sort of thing but it seemed like from what Thor had said, the most important thing now was for Loki to be honest with him.

"That's really nice of you," Loki began cautiously.

"I know! I know what you're going to say and I _definitely_ know this doesn't make everything okay. Just think of it as a show of good faith. Besides," he finished, grinning, "you should have a good breakfast for your first day of work."

The worst of the sudden tension in Loki's shoulders eased. That was what it was going to take, after all. Not some big, dramatic gesture meant to wash everything clean. It was going to be little things, over and over, soothing away the ache so gently until one day he go looking for it only to discover it was gone. He met Thor's smile with his own. "Most important meal of the day," he agreed.

 

It was the first time Loki had gotten to set up his own lab instead of having to settle himself into one put together by someone else. He spent his morning getting filled in on the minutia of their research, and the afternoon making a sizeable dent in his equipment budget. He stopped for tea a couple hours after lunch and texted Darcy while he waited for the water.

_It's fun getting to spend a lot of someone else's money_

_I'll bet it is. Did you get to buy anything fun tho?_

_mostly basics like optical fibers, but I did buy..._

He hit send and poured the water over his teabag, smiling to himself as he imagined Darcy waiting impatiently for the rest of the message.

_Yes???_

He gave the bag a few – leisurely – dips before replying.

_the best Raman spectrometer I've ever seen_

He could practically hear her squealing all the way from Cannon Falls. _you know I need deets_

_Just a sec. Lemme get back to my computer_

 

Thor had made breakfast, which meant it was only right for Loki to make dinner. He'd seen a grill out back and ever since the cookout at Jane's he'd been wanting more of the chicken she'd made. There was a supermarket a few blocks from the house, so he stopped there and got home just after six to find Thor sweating over the stove.

"Hi," Thor said, turning. He blotted his face on his sleeve. "I didn't expect you so early."

Loki shrugged. "I didn't really have anything to do today besides shopping. I'm sure I'll be there later once I have more work that needs doing. I didn't realize you'd start cooking so early."

"I thought crepes sounded good, but I didn't know what you'd like for a filling so I thought I'd make a few to pick from."

Loki set down his bag and started unpacking it into the fridge. "That's really nice of you. Thanks. I got stuff to make dinner too, but it can wait for tomorrow."

The smile Thor gave him seemed way too big for something as simple as dinner, but it also looked sincere. "You're making me dinner?"

"Well, you made me breakfast. And dinner too, now. I'll get the next couple of nights."

"Thank you. That's really sweet."

"It's sweet of you, too. We should probably work out a schedule or something, if we're going to be cooking for each other much. Which, it's fine if we don't," he added, in case Thor didn't mean this to be a regular thing. It made sense, saving them both some time and work, but it was also sort of a boyfriendy thing to do and they definitely weren't that.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to stmonkeys, we have more NSFW art! It is Loki, and he is burdened with glorious ass cheeks. It's based on a photo by justanothertart on tumblr.

That first weekend was the first time they had sex-sex, which Thor knew he wasn't supposed to think of as being categorically different than oral and handjobs but he couldn't really help it. It was on Saturday. Loki was in his room finishing up his unpacking and Thor was in the living room working on a paper and trying to stay out of the way.

"I'm all done," Loki said as he appeared in the doorway.

"I think that calls for a celebration," answered Thor.

"So do I." Loki gave him _that_ smile that he'd already begun to have a Pavlovian response to. Thor stood and Loki took his hand and together they went to Thor's bedroom.

He'd been right when he had said that he would be happy to have Loki top. He already knew it from everything leading up to this, and it was reinforced in every moment, before they were all the way undressed, even. Thor wasn’t used to partners who liked kissing as much as he did and it was so much fun to be able to indulge himself with one who shared his enjoyment. And indulge they did, hours, it seemed, each exploring the other with lips and tongues until Thor felt he might burst out of his skin if he didn't get _more_. When they fell into bed their kisses had tasted like the strawberries that had ended their lunch. Now all that bright crisp sweetness had been kissed away leaving them tasting like eager skin and clean fresh sweat and the berries were _nothing_ next to this.

Thor had been kissing his way up Loki's inner thigh, the skin smooth and soft against his lips. So lovely, the fine hairs here almost as soft as down, and right when he was starting to think he would be happy doing this forever he knew he would not. He shifted just enough to meet Loki's gaze and let his breath tease Loki's cock until Loki was growling and rolling them as one and reaching for the lube.

This was what they should have done months ago, Loki slicking his fingers and Thor curling up to meet them that half-second sooner. His touch was gentle and heated and his fingers were long and slender and magic seemed to dance from their tips as they spread and coaxed and twisted.

“Tell me when you're ready,” Loki said. "There's no hurry."

“Almost. Just one more minute.”

That might have been a slight exaggeration, but it wasn't that much more before he was nodding again and saying, "Alright."

Loki sat back on his heels and rolled on a condom while Thor watched, hardly able to believe any of this was real, but it was. It burned at first, but it was a good burn, and after that initial flare it was easier. He went slowly, inch by scant inch, letting Thor adjust each time before pushing his way in deeper. Finally there was no more to go and Loki gave him an open, wide-eyed smile.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. I'm- it's good."

"Okay."

That first tentative roll of Loki's hips had Thor grabbing for them, holding on.

"Fuck, Thor, you feel so..."

"Loki," Thor breathed. "Loki, Loki."

"Is this...?"

"It's good. Don't stop."

There was only the tiniest bit of difference between _flush_ and _pressed_ and Thor rocked upwards to chase it.

"Hah! Oh, Thor, yes," Loki murmured.

"You like that?" Thor asked, his voice pitched low and deep.

His fingers bit into Loki's hips as he guided them upwards and then pulled him down, Loki letting himself be moved as Thor needed, drawing him back in and even though it was new it was _right,_ so right, the way they should have been from the beginning, and they were going slowly but it wasn't long before the tension started to coil up, rich with promise. He had gotten a scented candle for his nightstand the day Loki had gone home to pack, and though he'd never lit it, it left subtle traces of amber lingering in the air. Now the fragrance seemed to go straight from his nostrils to his nerves and tangle with the bolts of fire Loki was sending through him with each languid thrust.

"Mmm," Loki breathed. "So soft."

There was no reason to rush and every reason to take their time but reason hardly mattered in the face of the sensations Loki was sending through him with every push and pull, making his need sharper, insistent, until he was moving almost frantically and Loki was moving with him, gasping, "Yes, Thor, yes," with every thrust, reaching for his cock and working him in time with their fucking and it was good, so good, and even better when Loki went stiff and stuttering just as Thor felt the world fall apart.

He'd been a little bit afraid it would be awkward, after, but Loki seemed content to collapse upon Thor's pillow and press lazy kisses wherever he could reach, and Thor in turn was content to draw him close and slide comfortably into dreams.

 

 

It didn't take long for the two of them to settle into an amicable routine. Since Loki had to be up early on weekdays, and cooking for two was really no more work than cooking for one, he made breakfast for both of them and left Thor's in the fridge to reheat when he got up. Thor wasn't teaching over the summer so he'd go to work at a more leisurely hour, get in a few hours in his lab, and get home in time to have dinner on the table when Loki got back or be ready to go out to eat. They didn't sleep together on weeknights, Loki not wanting to disturb Thor's rest, so Thor stayed up late trying to get a few things into shape for publishing while Loki hit the sack early.

On weekends everything was the opposite: Loki slept in and Thor got up to fix them brunch; Loki made dinner - far more elaborate than they needed to be, Thor would protest, but Loki said he liked to see Thor enjoying them; Loki slept in Thor's bed.

Two weeks after Loki moved in, a new bar opened just a five-minute walk from the house that had the best mojitos either one of them had ever tasted. There was sex even on the nights they slept apart, and the sweet lime and bright mint lingered so that Thor could still taste traces of it beneath the bitterness of come when he would kiss Loki afterwards. Thor's favorite place to see movies was in an art-deco-era theater that had the seats replaced with sofas and there was table service with beer and burgers and when Thor took Loki he fell in love with it as well. Loki got a discount joining Thor's gym and he would go for long swims while Thor was in the weight room, or if they were lucky they might nab one of the indoor tennis courts and play a game or two.

It was nice. Sure, it wasn't perfect. Loki seemed congenitally incapable of picking his hair out of the drain in the bathtub, and he tended to leave pans in the sink, but neither of those was a big deal. It just meant that Thor got some black hairs along with the blond when he cleaned after his own showers, and once the pans had soaked it wasn't much work at all to wash them clean. Just a quick fill of the sink with some soap and hot water and put some music on and then he had them on the drying rack in no time flat. And then Thor would head to work for a few hours and they'd get home and have dinner or maybe go work out or catch a movie.

All in all, it was really nice.


	39. Chapter 39

Loki was about to pull onto the freeway when he realized he'd forgotten his lunch. He glanced at the clock. Thor had made Pad Thai the night before, and while the leftovers were still good one day later, if he left them for Wednesday the noodles would be turned to rubber. He circled around and went home.

There was music coming from the kitchen and he found Thor at the sink and _everything_ clicked. All those times when he'd been so certain... "I thought so." It was like... if it had been anybody but Thor doing his dishes he'd have been thrilled, but this was just wrong. He felt almost sick.

Thor turned. "Loki! Hi. Is there something wrong at the lab?"

"I forgot my lunch. Have you been cleaning up after me a lot?"

Thor looked at his hands, covered in suds. "I wouldn't say a lot. Just here and there."

But Loki was shaking his head _no._ "I thought so, but then I kept telling myself that I must have done it and just forgotten because I'm groggy in the mornings. That's not it, though, is it? You've been doing it. You know you can leave things for me. Point them out, even, when I've forgotten them. I'm still getting used to not living alone, I don't mean to leave them for you."

"It's okay. It's not a big deal, really. I don't mind at all. I'm just-"

"Thor," Loki said gently. "I'm not him."

Thor swallowed. "No. You're not."

"Then you don't need to treat me like I am. Friends should make each other's lives better, right?"

"I'm sorry," Thor said, shoulders slumping. "I'm trying so hard to be normal but I don't know how to do that."

That was even worse and Loki swallowed around the miserable lump that had appeared in his throat. "I just don't want you on eggshells around me." He stepped closer and put his arm around Thor's waist. "You treat me like I'm going to attack you if you say the wrong thing when all I want is for you to _not_ think I will, because I won't. I moved in almost two months ago and you've basically been doing it since day one. All you have to do is say something instead of keeping it bottled up."

Thor cocked his head. "Umm..."

Realization hit about seven seconds later. "Fuck. You're right. I'm doing it, too. I'm so sorry," Loki breathed.

It had to be a good sign that they both started laughing at the same time.

"So I guess we just both try to remember this and do our best not do it so much," Thor said when they'd quieted.

"Yeah, I guess so." Loki glanced up at the clock and sighed. "I hate to go right now, but I really gotta go stop a reaction. It's two weeks' worth of work that'll be ruined if I'm late."

Thor smiled. "Have a good day."

"You too." Thor was still smiling at him and the morning sun was catching his hair and his eyelashes and making him look like some kind of Disney prince. Loki brushed a quick kiss across his lips. "See you tonight. Leave the dishes for me, okay? For a long time. It's definitely my turn."

 

In theory, Loki ate lunch with his colleagues – they were turning out to be just as likable as he'd thought during his first visits to the company – but being at the mercy of his instruments meant that in practice he ate when he could leave the machines. Sometimes he didn't get to eat until two, or even later. He didn't mind it today, though, as he'd gotten a text from Darcy saying she wanted to talk.

"Loki!"

"Hi, Darcy. What's up? I have to eat while we talk, I didn't want to wait."

"That's fine. I got a job!"

"You did? That's great news, really. Where is it?"

"Maple Grove. I'm moving up your way. I'll be one hour away, we can meet in the middle whenever we want. I miss you."

"I miss you, too. I'm so happy for you. What will you be doing?"

She told him in great detail, giving him time to finish his turkey on rye rather than having to talk around it.

"It sounds perfect for you. They must have been thrilled when you applied."

"I think so. I start in two weeks, so I have time to apartment hunt. And now I want to hear about you. Is Mr. Huge-and-Silent behaving himself?"

Loki chuckled. "Thor? He's been... well, it seems like lately we're fucking up the same things, so it'll work itself out. And he is cool, now that the whole shitstorm is over. It turns out we make pretty okay housemates. Or at least he does, and now I know where I have to get better. Overall, it's... it's pretty good."

"O - M - G, you're fucking him!" she said.

"I'm-"

"Don't lie. I can tell."

"We agreed to be friends with benefits," he sighed. "Everyone in St. Cloud thinks we're together so it's not like anyone else will fuck us."

"Uh-huh. Okay. You just tell yourself that."

Loki glanced at the clock. "Shoot, I have a meeting in two minutes. I gotta go."

"Okay. Remember to call me if he needs punching."

"Promise."

 

Thor often cooked out to avoid heating the kitchen, and when the evenings were nice, like this one, they ate on the patio to enjoy the breeze and the fireflies dancing against the darkening sky.

“I can’t believe it’s the middle of August already,” Thor said.

“Mmm. You’ve got, what, three weeks before school starts back?”

“Three and a half. We start on a Wednesday to ease people into things.”

“That’s surprisingly humane.”

Thor chuckled. “Yeah. Anyway, I was thinking, I haven’t taken a vacation, and your trip for interviews hardly counts. Would you maybe like to go to the Boundary Waters this weekend?”

“That sounds nice. I can take a half-day on Friday and then we’ll beat the traffic.”

Thor beamed at him. "Tony has a cabin up there we can use. It's right at the edge of where people are allowed to build."

"Perfect," Loki said, smiling back.

 

The next morning he told Lars that he was going to leave early on Friday. "Thor and I are going to the Boundary Waters for the weekend."

“Camping or staying at Tony’s cabin?”

“The cabin.”

“Ah,” Lars nodded. “Ingrid and I have been up there a few times. Couldn’t ask for anything more romantic. Why don’t you go up Thursday, give yourself some time to really enjoy it?”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to Thor.”

Thor had no objections, and on Thursday he got up bright and early to do their packing and grocery shopping while Loki went to work for the morning. He was home in time for a late lunch and they were on the road before two.

“Back roads okay? Tony said it’s only half an hour more than taking 35, and a lot prettier,” Thor asked as they got in the car.

“Perfect,” Loki told him. Thor had offered to drive first and Loki clicked his seat one notch closer to reclining, stretching his legs out with a pleased sigh.

Their route was mostly through farmland, the corn standing tall and proud, the early varieties already setting their tassels. Red-wing blackbirds and yellow-headed blackbirds darted across the road ahead of them, catching insects and guarding their territory. They had cold drinks and good music and the skies were spotted with bunny-tail clouds.

“I’m going to stop at the next gas station. My teeth are about to float away,” Thor said.

Loki chuckled. “I’m not quite there yet, but I’m not going to argue, either.”

The little general store attached to the station was like a step back in time; wooden fixtures everywhere, a candy case that had to be at least a hundred years old, and a guy behind the counter who wasn’t much younger. Even the dust motes catching the afternoon sun seemed to move more slowly here.

“Did you know they still make clove gum?” asked Thor reverently.

“I had no idea. You like it too?”

“I love it.”

“Two packs per customer,” said the old man. “Sorry, fellas, it’s limited.”

“Okay,” they said together. They each got two and Thor paid for his gas. Loki took his turn in the driver’s seat, and pulled back onto the road as Thor tore open the first pack of gum. He popped a piece into each of their mouths.

“Fuck, that’s good,” Loki said.

“Love it.”

They continued on, chewing happily. When they got close they switched to Tony’s written directions, based almost entirely on landmarks, and not long after seven they were pulling up in front of a cabin that looked more like a luxury resort.

Loki had his duffel bag over his shoulder and was reaching for the cooler when a thought struck him completely out of the blue. “Wait a minute,” he said. “What we talked about before… Is that why I always end up topping?”

Thor paused. “Well, yeah, I guess. But I really enjoy it, it’s not like-“

Loki pressed his fingers to Thor’s lips. “Huh-uh. No more of that, not with anything, okay? Tonight you’re going to fuck me.”


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some *seriously* NSFW art here, shoo the children, cover the cat's eyes, and so on. Thanks once again to stmonkeys for yet another lovely drawing! Thanks to justanothertart for another inspiration photo, as well.

Loki kept grinning at him all through dinner and at first it was fun, like he was excited at the thought of doing something new. He _kept_ doing it, though, and somewhere between the green beans and the peaches and ice cream Thor started to get nervous. He didn't think Loki would be that mean. Which meant Loki wasn't being mean, which meant he just had to ask and Loki would answer and it would be okay.

"You're not fucking with me, are you?" he asked hesitantly.

Loki raised a single elegant brow. "Not yet. That involves dicks, remember?"

"All the smiling. It just... it throws me sometimes."

"Oh." He softened visibly. "All the smiling is me looking forward to something fun. Pinky swear. Okay?"

"Okay. Thanks. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize for asking. If you can't tell, how else can you find out?"

"You're right. I'm not really used to..." He trailed off.

"It's okay. Now eat your ice cream before it melts."

They went for a walk after dinner. It wasn't exactly a private lake but there was only one other owner and the property line was farther than they wanted to go, so it may as well have been. Bats swooped through the purpling sky above them, snatching insects from the honeysuckle-heavy air. It was a perfect August evening, clear and sultry and halfway back to the cabin they were kissing, light stolen pecks that became long and passionate that turned into Loki leaning against a tree and Thor's arms boxing him in and their bodies rubbing together until they were both hard and eager.

“Perhaps we should be getting back,” Loki said. His lips were against Thor’s lobe at the time and they brushed against his skin almost ticklishly but the itch Thor wanted to scratch definitely wasn’t on his ear.

“Yeah.”

“Come on, then.” Loki took his hand and – no, Loki _tugged_ his hand. It was at once exciting and reassuring in a way he still couldn’t quite trust words to be. It was one thing for Loki to say that switching was fine but something else entirely to see the desire writ large on his face and feel his urgency in the way he pulled Thor down the path towards their bed.

 

Loki's body was mesmerizing. The muscles weren't prominent, not unless he tensed, but he was so firm just beneath his skin. Now Thor could feel the tension humming through them as he worked his way up from Loki's knees, darting back and forth to make sure both legs got equal attention. Kisses and nibbles - oh, delicious - were enough to make the smooth pale skin flush a most agreeable pink.

"Thank you," Thor said lowly.

"For lying here and getting kissed all over? Anytime, really. All you have to do is ask."

Thor kissed him again, this time on the kitten-soft crease between thigh and hip, right where above where it disappeared into thick dark hair. "This is nice, but not what I meant. I meant, like... for one, sometimes I get a thought in my head and I get so stuck and you... well, when you notice, you help snap me out of it and I know my problems aren't your job, and so... yeah."

"We're friends, right? Friends help each other. And everybody has shitty exes. It's not your fault that you landed the gold standard of them."

_It's not your fault._ Thor swallowed. He was getting better at not shying away from the past, bearing his thoughts a little longer before his defences went up, but this went right past his moat and archers and pots of boiling oil, through the gate and down into the dungeon where he found the fear that maybe he had done something to deserve it. That if he'd been smarter or more aware or stronger then maybe Andrew wouldn't have chosen him, or he'd have left sooner, or something.

But now he was here with Loki who was naked and tempting and beginning to look at him quizzically and this time when Thor put Andrew out of his mind it was by choice rather than reflex. He had something better to think about. Something good.

Thor had already left marks all across Loki's chest, trailing up his neck and shoulders, down his firm belly. He watched them move as Loki's breathing began to race at the feel of fingers inside him, opening him gently and thoroughly.

"How do you want to be?" asked Thor.

"Hmm-mm. You're picking this time."

Thor already knew. "I want you to ride me." His hands on Loki's thighs, feeling the long muscles shifting as he moved, letting him set the pace, and... oh, why lie? He wanted it like that for the view.

And a view was what he got. Loki slicked him efficiently before slinging one endless leg over Thor's waist and reaching back. He seemed to know what Thor wanted, settling not to his knees but his feet so that as he lowered himself - and fuck, he was so tight, so soft and hot inside - Thor got to see _everything_.

"Mmm... Thor..."

That was good. That was a good sign. Thor made himself stay still as Loki worked his way down, his jaw loose and parting more with each scant inch he took inside until their bodies were flush together and Thor couldn't resist catching the tip of his finger on that pouting bottom lip, swollen and cherry-red with kisses. Loki's eyes flashed as he closed his mouth and began to suck. Thor pushed it farther in and rested his other hand on Loki's thigh, feeling the butterfly-tremors in the muscles. Loki grinned down and rose up.

How Thor managed to make it last he really didn't know, but he was pretty sure he deserved a trophy. Loki wasn't helping at _all,_ either, with all those sinuous twists and breathy moans as he bounced deliriously on Thor's cock. Thor couldn't resist pushing himself up to sitting, claiming a long and open-mouthed kiss, all the filthier because Loki tasted like ice cream and innocence, before wrapping one arm tightly around Loki's waist to hold him still and fuck up into him.

"Thor... ah, God, just like that," Loki panted. They were going too hard to kiss but not so hard Loki couldn't sink his teeth into Thor's shoulder and wail softly as their stomachs trapped and teased his cock.

"Come on, baby, come for me," Thor said, letting go of his hold and reaching between them to take Loki in his hand. He stroked it more or less in time with his thrusts, hand going slick with the precum that was trickling from it, and then there it was, Loki spilling over him with sharp bursts, all liquid heat and liquid sighs and Thor was _gone._

They couldn't even move at first when it was over, they just sat there half-laughing at the intensity of it, savoring the kisses they had missed before. When they peeled themselves apart Thor grabbed a towel from the stack they'd put at the bedside and after helping Loki onto his back he took care of getting them both clean. Loki lay there looking blissful and contented and wonderfully dissolute. He was covered in huge swaths of fading pink spots just the size of Thor's mouth; his hair was a mess and a lazy half-smile played across his lips. Thor could have looked at him forever.

 

Thor woke to the hush of rain. Loki was warm and cuddly against him and Thor had gotten up to pee in the night so he had no need to do anything but lie there in the big comfortable bed and enjoy how Loki's soft breathing melted into the patter of water falling upon the lake.

It was a subtle, almost imperceptible, shift in sounds that told him Loki was waking up. He twisted around and pressed his lips into Loki's messy hair. "Morning," he whispered.

"Mmm. Morning," Loki yawned. He stretched, still yawning, long arms sticking out from under the covers and catching the thin beam of light. "Is that rain?"

"Yeah."

"Glad we're not in a tent."

"Me, too. You want breakfast?"

"Not yet. I'm cozy. Unless you're hungry."

"I can wait. I'm cozy, too."

Thor wasn't sure quite how long it was before they fell back asleep. They woke again to find the room brighter and themselves hungrier.

"I'll get it started," Thor offered.

"Thanks," Loki said. He was more alert than before and had that guarded look on his face again. He most often had it in the mornings after they'd slept together, and Thor would have asked but he suspected he didn't want to hear. Instead he chose to be glad that he was seeing it less and less often, and that each time it appeared it seemed to fade more quickly. Today it was already gone when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Do you want to go out in the canoe? The rain is pretty light," Thor asked as he hunted through their grocery bags for the pancake mix.

"Let's check the forecast. If tomorrow's clear I'd rather wait. If that's okay with you."

“Sure. I just want some time to relax before the term starts. I don’t care if that’s on the lake or in the hot tub.”

Loki met his eyes. “ _Really?_ ”

“Really. Promise."

“Okay. I’ll go check.”

“Great." Thor braced his nerves. He knew he shouldn't be nervous about this. It wasn't the sort of thing normal people got nervous about, but they'd promised that they'd try, and it would get easier eventually. It would have to. "Could you maybe wipe your toothpaste out of the sink? Just when you have a chance."

Loki looked surprised. "Did I miss some? I'm sorry. I'll get it right now."

That was... that was okay. Almost easy, even. Thor asked nicely, Loki responded nicely, and everything was okay. And now that he'd done it once he could do it again.

Loki returned carrying two giant towels.

“Hot tub today, canoe tomorrow?” Thor guessed.

“Bingo.”

“What do I win?”

“We'll see,” Loki answered with a smile.


	41. Chapter 41

The hot tub felt exquisite after how long he'd spent sitting in the car and it wasn't until Thor was rubbing Loki's shoulders that he realized how long those knots had been building. His last massage had been at that place by the Grand Canyon, when he and Thor were working through their packet of honeymoon coupons, and considering the amount of shit he'd faced since then, even though things were better now, he really needed one and Thor's hands were so strong and capable and-

"Sorry! Sorry, was that too hard?"

"No, that noise means keep going."

"Okay. Good."

It was around when Thor got to his glutes that it started feeling another kind of good as well. He wasn't entirely sure whether he more strongly wanted to have sex or to take a nap but Thor seemed content to keep going, working down his thighs, his calves, rolling his ankle bones between sure thumbs until the joints felt like jelly.

"There. That feels better," Thor murmured as he lowered Loki's feet back into the water.

Loki hid his alarm. "It does? Was I lumpy before?"

Oh. Maybe he hadn't hidden it so well after all because Thor answered, "Don't worry. I didn't notice them until I started."

"Okay," he said. "And thank you. You're right, it does feel better."

He was still torn between sex and sleep, but fair was fair and so he ignored both impulses in order to return the favor. Thor's eyes were soon falling shut in bliss and a quick (or not so quick, perhaps, but it wasn't like he stopped working while he did it) glance into the water showed that Thor was just as hard as Loki was.

"Thank you. That felt like heaven," Thor said as Loki finished.

"I'm glad. We better get out. We're already raisins and I don't want to find out what the step after that is."

They dried each other off and wandered back to the bedroom where they kissed with smiling lips and brought each other off with gentle hands and fell asleep without even noticing.

It was still raining when they woke. "Fun room?" Thor suggested.

"Sure."

The 'fun room' turned out to be the basement, which contained not only the room stocked with board games and table that Loki had expected, but another room with a pool table in the middle and a bar to one side, and a movie theater with a screen taller than they were.

"He doesn't do stuff halfway, does he?" Loki asked.

"Not Tony," Thor chuckled. "What looks fun?"

"I haven't played Clue in decades," Loki said, spotting the box.

"Clue it is."

Thor got them drinks while Loki set up the board, glasses of fizzy water with... "grapefruit?"

"Grapefruit bitters. They sounded good."

"They are good."

Loki won the first two games.

"Don't go getting too cocky. I'm just warming up," Thor told him.

"Oh, really? Should we make round three a little more interesting?"

"Loser makes dinner? Tony has a wood-fired pizza oven on the covered deck."

"You're on," Loki said, already dreaming of watching Thor sweating over the heat while he himself put his feet up and watched the ducks playing in the rain.

Doing that thing where you throw the pizza dough up in the air to make a perfect circle was a lot harder than the professionals made it look.

"That's why they're pros," Thor grinned when Loki complained about the bits of dough sticking to his hair.

At least it wasn't hot out. It was cool from the rain and there was mosquito netting around the deck so they didn't get bitten and they ended up sitting outside for hours, drinking, not the white wine they had chilled, but the red they found in the cupboard. By ten they were going back inside to hunt down the jackets Tony left for guests. Between those, and the dying fire, and sharing one oversized deck chair, the temperature was perfect.

 

"Do you want to try harvesting wild rice? It's in season, and they sell permits online," Thor said over coffee.

"What do you have to do?"

Thor shrugged. "I've never done it before. I can look it up."

"Okay."

Loki watched Thor's face as he read what was turning out to be a very long list of directions, going from curious to hesitant to horrified to putting the phone down and saying, "That's not vacation. Let's just canoe."

"Sure," Loki answered, laughing.

"There was talk of spiders, and it also involves digging a pit at one point."

"Ugh. No."

They doused themselves in bug repellent and tight-rolled their pant legs for extra safety. The boat house was right at the edge of the lake and Loki watched Thor's muscles work as he tugged the canoe down into the water. Thor held it still for Loki to climb in before following and taking up the oars. The boat was small and they had no reason for haste, so they'd agreed to take turns with a single set of oars.

"I'll row first," Thor offered, already reaching for the oars.

Loki smiled at him and Thor smiled back and it was so beautiful to be out there, skimming through the water almost silently, nothing but tranquility and clean air and happiness.

"God's in His heaven and all's right with the world," Loki's mother sometimes said. Loki was far from believing it, but today, for this little while... he almost felt as though she were right.


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once more to stmonkeys for the darling artwork! This one should be nice and safe, but I've had a couple problems recently with the link redirecting to a different image in the same folder, so maybe be careful just in case.

The dawn came on a trill of birdsong. Thor tried to remind himself that the other twenty-three hours of the day he liked it but that wasn't much consolation when he was woken up in the twenty-fourth.

"I think the birds here go up to eleven," Loki mumbled.

"I always manage to forget how loud they can be. It's pretty impressive, really."

"Mmm. Well, as long as we're awake, and they're not about to let us go back to sleep..." And that was how Sunday morning was given to laziness, slow and playful oral sex washed down by endless pots of Tony's expensive tea.

"You look tired. I can do the first part of the driving this time, if you want to nap in the car," Loki offered as they – at almost noon, when it couldn't be put off any longer – were carrying their bags out to the car.

"Then you'd be stuck doing the driving through the pretty part both ways. Thanks, though. That was nice of you to offer."

Loki shrugged. "Just say if you change your mind."

"I will."

About a quarter mile down the road from Tony's they passed a broad field and a memory from an earlier trip overlaid the dense grass. "Hey, we should come back up in the spring, if we're still pretending to be together. The wildflowers are almost unreal."

"Mmm, and if we come early and beat the mosquitoes..." Loki replied, his hand creeping into Thor's lap.

"Exactly."

*

Thor didn't have much time between classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this term and he'd stopped at the student union for lunch because what it lacked in value and palatability it made up for in speed. He'd just sat down to eat his magically flavorless burrito when someone addressed him.

"Hi, Thor. Are you alone?"

Thor twisted in his seat. "Hi, Pepper! Yeah, please join me."

She set down her tray and took the chair across from him. "So how was your trip? I haven't seen you in a while."

"It was nice. I haven't been up there in ages and we had a lot of fun. We lit the outside stove one night and Loki made these incredible pizzas and he was trying to spin the dough in the air and kept almost dropping it and once it landed on his head. It actually got chilly enough we had to borrow some jackets. Look," he said, pulling out his phone to show her a photo. "And we went canoeing all day one day and it was so peaceful I could have stayed out there forever. And he told me this hilarious story about when his family tried to take his great-aunt on a camping trip," he said, laughing at the memory. "They drove all the way out there and set up the tent, and then she... she... sheheeheehee..." He composed himself enough to finish. "She said, 'what about a toilet?'"

Pepper smiled politely. "Oh. That's hilarious. You know, I don't think I ever heard how you met." She twirled the straw in her tea and there was a clink of ice that wasn't half as cold as his abrupt panic.

"Conferences. You know how it is," he answered vaguely.

"Mmm," she agreed. "Which conference was it?"

"Ah... Materials Analysis. Two years ago."

"That's funny. I thought Tony said he was the only one from the department to go that year."

"Oh, did I say two? I meant three. You know how time flies."

She met his eyes and said nothing.

Thor was used to bottling things up. He was used to pretending he was okay when he wasn't. He was not used to making up stories on the fly.

"Okay, fine. I'd ask you to promise not to tell Tony, but there's probably not much point, is there?"

"Nope. Now spill."

"Fine," he sighed. "We met in Vegas in April and we meant to hook up but we got drunk and woke up married and it's this weird kind of license we're going to have to sue the state to break."

"Uh-huh. I see. Have you started the process? That's going to take quite some time," she said briskly.

"Well, no, there was some stuff that came up... and now Loki has this job working for someone who's so happy that he could bring us together, and so we figured we'd just pretend for a few more months."

"Suing the state could take years."

"Yeah, I know. But we were on tv as a couple and all, so there's no real need to rush..."

Now for some reason she was looking amused. "I see."

He didn't have to ask. He had no doubt she was laughing at him. The only thing to wonder was what in the world was so funny.

 


	43. Chapter 43

Loki got up early the next Saturday to help Darcy move. She'd had several people carrying boxes to the truck from her old apartment but no one was able to do the Maple Grove end, so Loki was there sitting out front in his car when she rolled up.

"Just get it all in before it gets too hot. We can arrange later, in the air conditioning," she answered when he asked how she wanted to order things.

Her new building had an elevator, which was a lifesaver. Still, while Darcy could manage her share of the weight of things alright, no amount of arm strength could make up for the fact that her height was a disadvantage with some of the larger and more awkward items. Even more of a lifesaver proved to be her hot new neighbor. Loki was about to hand out another box from the truck when he realized she was no longer behind him. In the interest of efficiency he took one with as he went to investigate and found her in the lobby flirting with someone tall and gorgeous with perfect locs brushing his shoulders, and who was very clearly flirting back. -And whose face fell when he saw Loki.

"...and this is my _friend_ , Loki," she said. "Loki, this is John, my neighbor. Loki's _boyfriend_ was supposed to come help too," she lied, "but he wasn't feeling well this morning."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," John said, looking not sorry at all. "I've only got a few minutes, but I'd be happy to help how I can."

"If you could help me with the bigger pieces of furniture, that would be wonderful."

"You bet."

Darcy finished up the boxes at the same time so she'd have an excuse to check out the rear view. The bed went first because Loki insisted, then the dresser, then the squat and insanely heavy set of shelves she'd inherited from her great-grandparents, before John glanced at his watch.

"Looks like that's everything, yeah? I've really got to run, but I'm sure I'll see you around."

"Yeah... see you. I'm in 2-B," she breathed, standing directly next to the brass number on her door.

"I'll try to remember," he said.

Loki gave a friendly wave.

“Fuck, he’s hot,” Darcy groaned when he was out of earshot.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Speaking of which, how are things? With you know. Here, you can drive,” she said, putting the keys in his hand. “My arms are sore and there’s no power steering.”

“Am I on the rental agreement?” He grinned at her as she took them back.

He followed in his car and they went straight from the u-haul office to the supermarket to stock her fridge with cold drinks.

Back at her apartment they opened two bottles of mineral water and drank them down before turning to the arranging. Everything was all crammed in on one side of the living room and it took most of the afternoon to sort things to her satisfaction.

"Early dinner?" he suggested as the last drawer was slid shut.

"God, yes."

 

"So how are things with you and Thor?" Darcy asked far too casually as two giant burgers were set in front of them.

"There is no _me and Thor,_ " he reminded her. "We're just friends."

"And housemates. Some housemates get along better than others."

That was true. It was a reasonable question. "Pretty good. We have the chores split up pretty well and I have so much free time now, not having to do all that stuff for myself. It's really nice. And he's a great cook, too."

"You still fucking him?"

"Did you not see him?"

"You're still fucking him."

He snorted. "Of course I am. And the other way around, which is good too."

"Spice of life and all that," she agreed. "Is he hung?"

"Oh, yes," Loki nodded.

"I knew it. I knew it just by looking. But the other stuff... I mean, personality-wise. You're sure it's okay? That was a pretty fucked-up thing he accused you of."

"It was, but... looking back on it, I can see why the timing seemed so suspicious. And he genuinely felt terrible, and... and I'm over it," he realized.

"Okay. You do seem happy."

"I am happy. I like my job, my meds are still working, and until it's time for us to get divorced we're just having a really good time living together. He's so funny. He makes me laugh all the time."

"Yeah? Like how?"

"Like... okay. So last weekend we went up to the Boundary Waters, right? And on Saturday we went out on the lake, and you know how usually the ducks swim away when you get too close? Well, there was this one," he said beginning to giggle, "that just stayed right where it was and started quacking at us, really loudly, and Thor said, he said... he... heheehee," Loki broke off and wiped his eyes. "Heeheehee... he said it was like an old man telling us to get off his lawn."

"That's your super-funny story?" she asked, looking amused.

"Maybe you had to be there. It was hilarious. He's so funny," Loki said, blotting his damp lids with his napkin.

"Mmm. Yeah," she agreed, smiling at him.


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today we have not one but *two* delightful drawings from stmonkeys. <3 Thank you!

 

 

 

 

It was the silliest thing that made Thor realize he'd fallen in love. He'd always expected the second time – if there was to be a second time for him, which he wasn't really sure about – to be much like the first, full of heightened emotion, all passion and intensity and that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach that was almost but not quite like nausea. This time wasn't like that at all.

They'd slept together in Loki's pillowy-soft bed and now they were sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast and doing the crossword. Thor had just taken another bite of toast covered with a thick layer of his mom's spiced peach jam. "What's a nine-letter word for 'relating to the sea'?" Loki asked, looking up to meet Thor's eyes, and just like that Thor knew.

"Thalassic," he said.

"Like the goddess. Of course." Loki clicked his tongue and it was the most precious sound Thor had ever heard. "You're so good at this, Thor."

“You’re good, too.”

Loki beamed at him for a perfect moment before his face went quizzical. "What?"

"What what?"

"You looked a million miles away."

"I don't know. Probably just need more caffeine."

"Looked more like you were pining for the fjords."

Thor laughed way too much. He knew it was too much but it felt too good not to because he was in love with someone who, yeah, he was flawed, but he was trying, and underneath those flaws he was _kind_ and he knew Thor's flaws and still accepted him for who he was. It was freeing, buoyant, like he was a balloon taken from a cramped little bag and suddenly filled with helium. And so he laughed and laughed.

Loki appeared both pleased and confused at Thor's reaction. "I didn't know you were such a Monty Python fan. I can try to study up."

"I'm not. I mean, I like them and all, but I... I don't know. Tickled my funny bone, I guess."

"Ah. There's enough jam for one more piece of toast, you should eat it."

"We should split it."

"Huh-uh. I saw your face when it came in the mail. No way am I eating the last of it," Loki said, shaking his head. "You take it and I'll have a little nibble."

 

Thor was sitting on the sofa thinking about how happy he was when Loki walked in with a long face and stood in front of him looking mournful. "Hey, what's wrong?" Thor asked. He gave Loki's hand a tug and Loki melted down next to him.

"We missed the last day of Dairy Queen. No soft serve until spring," Loki lamented.

Thor reminded himself that it made Loki unhappy and so he was able to look unhappy as well. "That sucks. They usually run a ton of ads, I can't imagine how we missed them this year."

"Me either. I usually go every day for the whole last week." Loki snuggled deeper into Thor's side and pulled a throw over his legs. "What were you doing, sitting out here?"

Thor scrambled for something believable. "Um, just thinking about maybe watching something. You want to?"

"Sure. More zombie show?"

"Works for me." Thor stretched for the remote and got the show started. Loki wiggled down to lie with his head in Thor's lap and they watched in contented silence right up to the end credits.

"Wow, I can't believe he did that. So much has changed since we started watching this, huh?" Loki asked, looking up at him.

Thor smoothed his hand down Loki's hair. "Yeah. Seems like everything."

 

He knew he should say something. He knew it. They'd agreed they'd talk about things and this was basically the biggest thing ever, but it was also the hardest thing ever and after trying what felt like a thousand times to find the words, he simply... gave up. If Loki had shown any signs of sharing Thor's emotions he'd have blurted it out in a flash, but Loki seemed to be the same as always, and so Thor held his tongue and told himself to enjoy what he had. It wasn't so bad being just friends, he thought. After all, he wanted to be friends. He wanted more, too, but he could content himself with this. It was better – far, far better – than scaring Loki off with emotions and a longing for more than Loki was able to give.

Their relationship wasn't perfect. Loki still forgot to clean up his shed hair sometimes; he didn't always remember when it was his turn to refill the bird bath. But then again, Thor sometimes forgot things too, so that his faux-casual, "Hey, can you look after the birds when you have a sec?" was getting closer to genuinely-casual each time Loki answered with an easy, "Sure, can you get the recycling?" And though both of those things were happening less often, they definitely were still happening. But then, neither of them was perfect. Once upon a time, Thor had believed in perfect things. Now he knew to believe in good things. An imperfect good was something real. An imperfect good was something he could trust.

For a while, he really did manage to make himself believe that it would be enough.


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More art! Thank you, stmonkeys! :D This one is safe for the workplace and the tender eyes of baby kittens. 
> 
> There's also an easter egg for the poetry fans.

It was almost midterm break, and after Thor's idea of them spending such a gorgeous weekend at the cabin, Loki had to find something good for them to do. Lars, being a researcher himself, understood the natural of lab work – that it was always the experiments, not the clock, that determined when someone could leave – and so he was agreeable about those evening hours being added up and turned into long weekends. So it wasn't a matter of time that was holding him back. He just had to find something perfect.

It came to him one night when they were talking about books.

"I never would have pegged you for an Edward Gorey fan," Loki said.

"You don't need to peg me at all. Your dick is fine."

Loki choked on a snort. "Thank you so much for the glowing praise. I mean it, though. I wouldn't have guessed."

"I have facets," Thor answered, flashing him a grin. "Anyway, how anyone can read The Vinegar Works and not love it, I don't know."

 _Vinegar works._ Perfect. There was one less than an hour away; he'd come across it when he was browsing online about things to do near St. Cloud, though at the time it hadn't particularly caught his attention. He called the next day and scheduled a visit, and, on their recommendation, made reservations at a tree house bed and breakfast.

Loki worked through the weekend to get himself some extra time and give Thor a chance to grade his midterms, and on Tuesday morning they headed out.

"So where are we going?" asked Thor. His breath was a puff of white in the crisp air.

"I told you it's a secret. There's a blindfold in the glove compartment for you for when we get close and everything."

Thor laughed and put his hand on Loki's thigh and almost before they knew it, it was time for Thor to cover his eyes.

"I know that noise... we're off the freeway."

"Should I have brought earplugs?"

"No, it's okay. I can't quite make out which road we're on. Yet. Gimme time."

Loki laughed. "You don't have much." And indeed he didn't, for not five minutes later he was pulling over at the side. "Okay. Look," he said.

Thor pulled off the blindfold. "A vinegary?"

"Like your book." He hadn't expected to be so nervous. He added uselessly, "I thought maybe you'd like it."

"I love it. Thank you." Thor leaned over and kissed Loki's cheek.

The tour was far more interesting than Loki had expected – really, he'd picked it for the name – and the day was nice enough to go for a walk in the orchard where they grew the fruits. There was a tasting at the end and when they left the trunk was considerably more loaded than when they'd arrived.

"But that can't be all, is it? Unless you told me to pack just to throw me," Thor asked.

"Nope. I'll let you look this time, though."

The treehouse was only one room, small, and heated by a woodburning stove, which Loki thought seemed questionable but it had been here for years and had a certificate from the fire chief and everything.

"This is incredible, Loki. Wow."

Loki smiled and looked at his shoes, feeling almost bashful. "It's not as fancy as the cabin."

Thor laughed at him. "We're spending the night in a _treehouse_. It's like every childhood dream come true. Well, besides running away to join the circus." Thor started the fire and they carried their things up. The room heated quickly and getting a suitcase up a ladder was no small task and they sat down on the bed almost sweating.

It was Thor who started things, Loki thought, but he couldn't be quite sure. Kisses – indulgently slow, they had nothing at all that needed doing and what a luxury that was – led to hands tugging at shirts and (oooh, goody) teeth tugging at zippers and then they were shoving back the blankets and urging each other down to share a pillow as they twined their legs and began to rub lazily together.

Thor's eyes really were like the summer sky; their clear light blue darkened into storms when he was roused like this, and electricity sparked deep within them. Thor loved being kissed on his neck, right where his heightened pulse thudded like a hammer against his skin. He was just slightly ticklish so that it made him moan and laugh all at once, and once Loki discovered it he found it irresistible. Now he stretched forwards to nuzzle his lips there which set Thor laughing which made Loki laugh too, so he kept doing it as they moved faster, cocks pressed together between their stomachs, heated and slippery, until their laughter turned into groans of pleasure as they spilled.

There was a box of tissues conveniently close at hand and they cleaned up half-heartedly before dragging the covers over themselves and curling together in sated contentment. Loki fell into a half-sleep, and when he roused he found Thor's gaze was fixed on something in the distance. Loki nudged his shoulder with his chin. "What?" he asked playfully.

"Huh?"

"You've got that look _again_. Like your thoughts are up in the stratosphere or something."

Thor smiled and came back to earth. "Afterglow, I guess. This was nice."

"Mmm. Yeah. Hey, you want to go grab a drink or something before dinner? It's still happy hour."

"Sure," Thor said, sitting up. "Okay."

They found a nice pub for drinks and dinner and then lingering over a shared slice of mud pie before heading back.

Wednesday they discovered that for a good tip, several places would deliver to the base of the treehouse, and they barely went out at all.

Thursday afternoon they headed home and Friday Loki was back at work.

 

It was the silliest thing that made Loki realize he'd fallen in love. He'd had close relationships before, but he'd always sensed that when he found the one, there would be something more. Passion and drama and something almost like drowning. Instead he found love to be calm and quiet. It had crept into his heart on little cat feet and made itself a home. He'd just picked up his coffee to take a sip when his phone sounded with a text. He pulled it from his pocket and there on the screen it said _Thor_ and a wave of happiness suffused his being and he knew.

 _So this is what it's like,_ he thought to himself. _It's far better than I had expected._

 

He smiled as he opened the text. It didn't even matter what was in it, it was going to make him smile because it was from Thor and that was enough. 

 

_I found a lawyer who will help us sue for divorce_


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW art alert! Here there be dicks. And this time we get not one but *two* gorgeous drawings from stmonkeys - please show her some love! One is from a photo by justanothertart.

The flight to Vegas left at seven-twenty-five so they stayed at an airport hotel rather than having to leave Sauk Rapids at five am. It was one of the ultra-bland commuter hotels that in an attempt to suit every taste succeeded in suiting none, but it hardly mattered. What did matter was that this was – probably not the very last, but once they started the legal case Loki would be looking for an apartment – one of the last times they'd go to bed together. And it would definitely be the last time they'd have sex before they started the divorce. It shouldn't have mattered to him but it did. It was like swallowing sandpaper across every nerve in his body but Loki was smiling and joking about having a new bed to christen and so Thor joked and smiled too.

They showered together, washing away the day and the drive. They still hadn't worked out a system for deciding who would top when, beyond one of them going for it first and seeing if the other one felt like it too, and if not they'd rearrange. Now Thor ran a hand down Loki's pert and sudsy rear and asked, "Yes?"

"Yes."

He dipped his fingers between, playing and teasing until the tight furl began to relax beneath his touch before rinsing away the last of the shower gel and replacing it with conditioner.

"Ooh!" Loki gasped and jumped when Thor tried breaching him with a slick finger. Thor jerked back, horrified, but Loki was already laughing. "It's okay. Colder than I expected, is all." There was something in Loki's voice that threatened to break Thor's heart and so he distracted himself the best way he could, making Loki purr in his ear as he pressed inside. "Mmm. You know, the cold even feels kind of nice, now that I'm prepared for it."

"I can go get some ice, if you want..."

"That's okay. I'll manage someh- _oh_."

He didn't want it to be in the shower, Loki facing away and both of them contorted, focused more on not falling than on what they were doing, so once Loki was melting against him and panting he reached back to turn the water off. "Bed okay?"

Loki's lashes had tiny water droplets that sparkled in the light as he nodded. They dried off like it was a competition and took the rest of the towels to keep the bed dry. The lube was waiting on the nightstand and Thor was already slicking himself as Loki got comfortable and then they were together, one last time, Thor pressing in until there was no more _in_ to go and then pausing for Loki to adjust.

“Okay. Ready.”

It was only the promise of sliding back in that made Thor able to pull back at all. He withdrew completely so he could savor that first moment a second time and he might have waited a second, letting the anticipation build, but when he popped free of the grasping ring Loki made this little whimper that it seemed Thor could not resist.

They fit together so perfectly it was cruel.

"Fuck... fuck, Thor, that's so good," Loki panted.

"God, Loki, you feel amazing, you're incredible..." and he almost said, "I love you," and what a disaster that would have been.

Thor held himself back when Loki came, desperate to take in every second of it, gritting his teeth with the strain of resisting those throbbing pulses that threatened to tip him over. He didn't let himself go until Loki's moans of pleasure had faded to sighs of contentment, his hips jerking erratically as he spilled as though he could write the word _mine_ and then somehow make it true.

“Goodnight. Sleep well,” he said when they had cleaned up.

“Goodnight. You, too,” said Loki.

They would still be friends. Seeing Loki happy would make him happy. He’d be happier if it was with him, but still… he’d be okay. He’d be okay and he’d move on and one day it would make him happy without hurting at all, and they’d still be friends. And now he knew how a good relationship ought to make him feel. That boded well for his future. Even though it hurt right now he was deeply, deeply grateful to Loki for giving him that knowledge. He fell asleep with the thought bittersweet on his tongue.

Thor woke in the morning to find Loki already awake, staring at the ceiling. "You look serious," Thor said. "Is something wrong?"

Loki paused. "Just thinking about the fact that we're about to sue a state, and it's not the sort of lawsuit the media ignores, especially with two men. I don't think we have much peace in our futures."

_None at all for me. At least not until I'm over you,_ Thor thought. Out loud he simply answered, "Yeah. I hadn't thought about that. It'll be okay, though. It'll work out somehow, right?"

"I guess so. You're right."

They were both quiet after that, eating the hotel's crummy continental breakfast in silence, washing it down with the thin coffee with a minimum of complaint. They repacked their bags haphazardly and took them to the car. The engine was cold and they sat, their breath fogging the windows, waiting for it to warm up.

Thor was just putting the car into gear when Loki laid a cold hand over his own. "Wait, Thor. Stop. I wasn’t going to say anything because I didn't want to risk our friendship when you don't feel the same way but I can’t just not say anything. I don't want us to go, I don't want to do this," Loki said. He spoke rapidly, like he was afraid that if he didn't get the words out fast enough, he wouldn't be able to say them at all.

Thor looked at him. Loki looked back. His eyes were wide and his pale skin almost ghostly. Thor looked down to where their hands touched. It wasn't just being in love, he realized. He'd been in love before, and that hadn't been enough. Now he thought of last night, in bed, when they had made each other laugh even in the midst of sex. He thought of how Loki had arranged a whole trip around the fact that their destination shared a name with a book Thor liked. He thought of the compassion in Loki's voice back when he had found Thor doing his dishes and said, _Thor, I'm not him._ He thought of their helicopter ride, so long ago now, but how natural it had felt to have Loki's hand grabbing him to point out the window even then. He looked back up at Loki. "I don't want to either," he said.

Loki gave an uncertain laugh. “Is this crazy?” he asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I… I fell in love with you,” he said.

“Me, too. I fell in love with you, too. I really hadn't meant to,” Loki told him.

"Then I guess we go back inside and call the lawyer to cancel?"

Loki nodded. "And then..."

Thor grinned. "Then we have our whole lives to finish what we started in Vegas."


	47. Chapter 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again we get two beautiful drawings from stmonkeys! Both safe for work unless you're afraid of killing your coworkers with adorableness.

Their dressing rooms were on opposite sides of the chapel, which was perfect. Darcy had already gone out to walk up the aisle with Tony and take their places at the front. Loki stood by the door, waiting for the music that was their cue. He hadn't thought he'd be so nervous - they were already married, after all, this was purely ceremonial - but his stomach gave a leap when he heard the first soaring notes. They'd agreed that they wanted something that sounded like a wedding without the annoying 'dum, DUM, DUM-DUM' of the usual processional, and while the _Ode to Joy_ was more staid than what Loki might have chosen on his own, the look on Thor's face when he suggested it made it impossible to refuse. Loki opened his door and across the hall there was Thor opening his.

They were all alone, smiling at each other, walking towards each other, and they met in front of the open doors and walked down the aisle hand in hand.

Darcy and Tony waited at the front, beaming at them. Their families were there, their friends were there. Their mothers hadn't even scolded them too much about eloping once they explained that they'd simply done it to avoid making a fuss, but now felt the yearning for a proper ceremony (a story they'd worked out together in great detail over the course of a full week, cross-examining each other on the minutiae until they could make their stories match even in their sleep).

They were calling it a reaffirmation of their vows because renewal made them sound like a rental, something that would get used up rather than something that would continue to grow and blossom. Loki had called the Elvis chapel and they'd emailed him a copy of their standard service. It seemed right to use it again, with a few tweaks - 'to remain' instead of 'to be,' and that sort of thing - and they were mercifully normal despite their source.

They kept holding hands when they reached the front of the chapel and stood facing the pastor.

Thor had warned Loki that he couldn't promise there'd be no more bumps in their relationship; that he was trying his best to shed the damage that had been done to him, but some of it went so deep he was afraid there might be scars there forever. _I don't know if I'll ever really be able to be rid it,_ he'd said. Loki had answered, _You should keep trying for yourself, as well as for me. But always remember that I love you how you are right now, scars and all._

Loki in turn had warned Thor that his remission likely wouldn't last forever, and that when he had flares – which would likely grow worse, longer, and more frequent with age – there would be things he'd no longer be able to do. _There's no guarantees,_ he'd said. Thor had answered, _Those things you can't do, I'll do them for you. Anyway, there's no guarantees for any of us._

Now as the pastor said 'comfort and honor him,' Loki squeezed Thor's hand, and when the pastor said 'in sickness and in health,' Thor squeezed back.

This time, when they said, 'I do,' they'd remember it forever.

The reception was fun, in large part because their families got along every bit as well as they'd expected, so that they were free to enjoy the evening rather than being stuck running interference. They were glad when the limo arrived, all the same. They held hands all the way to the airport and Loki's face hurt from smiling but he didn't care. There had been no discussion about where to go for their honeymoon because there had been no question.

"Our old room," Thor said as they walked in.

The door swung shut behind them and then Thor's arms were wrapping around Loki's waist, pulling him close. "It was good, wasn't it? Right from the start. We should have known," Loki mused.

Thor nuzzled at his neck as he answered. "We were just strangers then. Now we know for real."

"You're right." He reached down to hold Thor's arms around him as he started towards the bedroom. "It's even better now that we know."

 

Loki woke the next morning to find Thor's eyes on him, warm and loving. "Hi," Thor whispered.

"Hi. You sleep well?"

"Mmm," Thor smiled. "You?"

"Yeah. You want breakfast?"

"Let's just stay like this for a while first."

Loki scooted closer, into Thor's waiting arms. "Okay."

It was several hours later – they'd paid for the honeymoon suite twice now, after all, and darned if they weren't going to make proper use of it for once – that they dressed and went out. "You want to start with the roller coaster?" asked Thor.

He'd remembered. Of course he had. Loki had remembered, too. "Let's save that for after dark. Let's go to the Venetian and get you that gondola ride."

The ride through the fake Venice – in a private gondola, serenaded the entire time – was ridiculous, all plaster and trompe l'oeil and cheesy Vegas-Italian songs, and Loki loved every minute of it because it made Thor smile. On the way out they stopped in an old-fashioned photobooth for a strip of photos and as much making out as they could pack into the sixty seconds the automated curtain was closed.

They wandered along the strip, eating junk food and drinking foot-long frozen cocktails dispensed from slurpee machines, until they found themselves back in front of their hotel. They both had that strangely agreeable stomachache that came from a delightful excess of empty calories and they fell asleep, twined together, until twilight.

"Should we see if pina coladas work as well as eating pineapple?" Loki asked. As if Thor might say no when Loki was already kissing his way down his chest.

"Definitely. But you know as well as I do that one sample is not enough to prove or disprove a hypothesis."

"Very true. In the interest of scientific rigor, you'd better run the test as well."

Thor laughed and twisted around until they were matched. His beard was ticklish against Loki's stomach and his breath was warm against Loki's cock and then his lips wrapped around it just as he did the same to Thor's and all thoughts of anything but happiness were lost.

They lay with Thor's head resting on Loki's chest, after, Loki running his fingers down the smooth golden locks. "It's getting dark out," he murmured.

"We should go. You're owed a ride," answered Thor.

Even something as mundane as getting dressed was good, somehow. Jeans and long-sleeve shirts topped with light jackets were just right to savor the nip in the air. The vendors were still at it with the barrage of fried food and chemically cocktails, but they managed to resist this time in order to avoid being sick in the middle of the ride.

The line moved in long bursts that still somehow seemed to take forever, but it hardly mattered when they were waiting together, arms slung comfortably around each other's waists. It was a beautiful night, the sky so clear that even all the lights of the Strip couldn't drown out the stars overhead.

Loki held up his hand. "It's funny. I thought it would take me some time to adjust to wearing this, but I'm already used to it."

Thor leaned over to brush a kiss across the backs of his fingers. "I am to mine, too."

Their turn came at last and they climbed into the third car, clamping the safety bar down across their laps.

The ride began smoothly, building momentum, followed by a long stretch of ups and downs before it turned towards the dazzling blanket of stars. They clasped hands and smiled at each other as they soared upwards. Together, they could fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving feedback! It's been so wonderful to hear your thoughts as the story progressed. Next up I'll have something about as different from this as it can get: it starts on a dark and stormy night in Dunwich, MA...


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